American Express is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $100.48.
With this update I added four new lines to the report (all reports will get these new rows as they are updated).
The new rows are just below the rating cell as follows:
| Generic Rating (This rating does not consider the circumstances of any individual investor and is therefore not specific advice for any individual): | (higher) Buy at $100.48 |
| Has Wonderful Economics? | Yes, 34% ROE |
| Has Excellent and Trustworthy Management? | Yes |
| Likely to grow earnings per share at an attractive rate over the next decade? | Yes |
| Valuation? | Attractive with 13.6 P/E |
Previously, in the summary cell of each report I have addressed whether it was a good business, and well managed and what the outlook for growth was and what the valuation looked like as well as other factors. And the rest of the report gave lots of further details and gave my thinking. But it is easy to get bogged down in details and also some people likely just look at the rating. But the rating cannot really stand as a summary of the entire report. These four new rows address the key questions that Buffett has said we need to ask. And they help to explain the rating. At times a stock is rated very highly due to its cheap valuation but it may not be a fundamentally great business. At other times a great business is rated fairly low due to an excessively high P/E ratio. These four new rows can help to explain the rating. Ideally subscribers would still look at the full report and try to see the full logic of the rating.