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Scores overview

This brief guide is an informal introduction to the use of Gradement's scores to help the user in their investment decision making process. In other, more specific guides, you can find a more formal description of each of the scores calculated by Gradement.

is

The easiest and quickest way to decide whether to invest or maintain an investment in a particular company is to simply check the value of the is (investment score). As with all other scores, the is:

  • is a value that varies between 0 and 10
  • the higher the value, the better the company from an investor point of view

The is score is a summary of the rest of the main scores calculated by Gradement. In its simple value, from 0 to 10, are summarized ten years of accounting magnitudes, prices and financial statements all adjusted for the inflation of the currency in which the company's annual accounts are expressed.

By limiting your investing to companies with is >= 7, you will be sure to be investing in excellent companies from a quantitative financial, and economic point of view.

is = qs + ps

The is score is the result of the combination two other scores, qs and ps. The first one reflects the quality of the company, the second one reflects the fairness of its quoted price in the secondary markets.

In this way, the is score is all you need to evaluate the economic, financial health and stock price overvaluation or undervaluation of the company.

Price, Solvency and Profitability

We have already seen the Price/free cash flow score. It captures the level of undervaluation or overvaluation of the stock price of a given company. A low value is an indication of overvaluation (expensive shares) and a high value is indicateve of undervaluation (cheap shares). The other two main scores for which the is score is composed are the Dynamic solvency score and the Firm profitability score score.

is includes in its calculation some other concepts but the main ones are these three: price, solvency and profitability. Those are, in our opinion, the three main axes with which to analyze every company.

Informally we can define profitability as the ability of the company to generate profits for shareholders. A company will be better the more profitable it is. But it is not enough just to look at profitability when investing. Profitability has to be qualified by two other important factors: solvency and price.

Solvency measures the ability of the company to meet its debts in a timely maner, and therefore, its ability to continue operating in the market. A low value of the Dynamic solvency score is an indication that the company has, or is expected to have in the future, difficulties in dealing with the payment of debts with third parties and so be subject to a possible bankruptcy and the corresponding liquidation/closure.

These three fundamental axes of all investment decisions, solvency price and profitability, are the ones that Gradement captures in a single value with this is.

There is a reverse relationship between solvency, price and profitability. It's not easy to find companies that simultaneously have a high value in all this three categories because:

  • Profitable and solvent companies are the most demanded by investors, this increases their price on the stock markets. Because of this tendency to overvaluation of profitable and solvent companies, the Price/free cash flow score for this companies tend to have a low value.
  • The financial profitability of a company can easily be increased (issuing debt with an interest rate lower than the economic profitability) but at the cost of decreasing its solvency. And vice versa, the solvency of a company can be increased but at the cost of diminishing its profitability. This inverse relationship between solvency and profitability means that, in general, few companies present high values ​​in both scores simultaneously.

Other Scores

Although the is and its three main components: profitability, solvency and price, constitute, as we have seen, the three fundamental axes in every investment, there are another series of scores that analyze other very important aspects of the company and that, depending on the investment style or circumstances of the user, may give to them more or less weight in his investment decision making.

We give here a very brief introduction to the meaning and use of these other scores. In other guides you could find a more detailed explanation of each one of these scores.

All these scores, like all Gradement's scores, have a value ranging from 0 to 10, with 0 being the worst score possible and 10 being the best one.

Size Score

The value of this score is an indication of the size of the company. Since there exists many ways to measure the size of a company this score uses a combination of them, but prioritizing some with respect to others. You can consider that the company is small if the score is less than 5. Large companies will be those with a score of 7 or higher.

Some investors have a preference for investing in small companies because of their potential for revaluation, while others prefer large companies because of their greater stability and security in general. These investors can use this score to filter, using the screener, those companies that they would want to analyze.

The score can also be used to get an idea of the relative difference in size between two companies that you want to compare.

Geographic Score

This score measures the so-called country risk of the Government/State of the country in which the company had its headquarters. This country risk includes many factors: political risk, exchange rate and interest rates risk of the country's currency, economic risk (evolution of the country's economy), fiscal risk (taxes borne by the company and risk of State default), among others.

Since this score is not included in the calculation of the is, there may be companies with a high is value but with a low value in the Zone score. In this case the company is very good from the investor point of view but is located in a country with certain political/economic risks that can cause the is to deteriorate in the future.

You can see this score as an indication of the likelihood that the is (and the other scores) will remain at the current level in the near future. The greater the value of the score, the greater the future stability, and therefore, the greater confidence will have to be given to the rest of scores.

External financial non-dependency

This score measures the level of the company's indebtedness in relation to the total value of its assets that it has. The lower the value of this score, the higher the level of indebtedness (lower financial independence of the company). It is not necessarily bad for the company to present a high level of indebtedness as long as it does not affect its solvency (the company may decide, for example, to increase its level of indebtedness to increase the financial profitability of its shareholders).

There are two versions of this score, one that includes as business debt the so-called commercial liabilities, and other that does not include them (you can consult here a detailed explanation of the concept of commercial liability).

Growth score

This score measures the growth experienced by the company in the last seven years. There are many ways to measure growth. Gradement uses as proxy the variation of net income and free cash flow, albeit with a special emphasis on income and giving more weight to the most recent accounting periods.

Gradement automatically takes inflation into account in all its calculations (internally it uses constant monetary values). This way, we does not take into account the possible effects of an inflation increasease in the variables of income and cash flows when calculating the growth score.

Dividend payments

This score will have a value above 7 for companies that pay a high dividend level. For the calculation of the score, the dividend interest is compared with a proxy of the natural interest rate calculated by Gradement.

is does not include in its calculation the dividend level to appraise the value of a company, because there are more appropriate variables for that (such as the free cash flow). However, this score is calculated because many investors consider important to analyze whether a particular company pays or not dividends, as well as the dividend interest rate offered.

Capital needs

This score is a measure of the level of capital expenditure (maintenance/renovation of machinery, buildings, etc.) that the company needs to continue operating and with the same level of activity. A low score value will be an indication that the company requires large capital expenditures (a capital intensive company) and a high value will indicate that it requires a low level of capital expenditure. All things been equal, a company with lower capital requirements will be better than another one with greater capital expenditure.

The level of capital expenditure mainly depends on the industry to which the company belongs.

For the calculation of the score, the capital expenditure is compared to the level of assets of the company's capital needs asset-based score and with the company's income level of assets.

Steadiness scores

This set of scores analyze the level of variation experienced by the following accounting variables of the company:

  • Free cash flow
  • Free earnings
  • Operating cash flow
  • Earnings

A high value of these scores will indicate that the corresponding variable has not experienced large downward oscillations: either it has remained constant or has increased in value. The stediness of these values reinforces the predictive nature of the rest of the scores. Because, in order to analyze an investment, we must necessarily rely on past accounting, the more stable the accounting variables are, the more likely the company will behave as the Gradement's scores predict.