About MoatMap & the Founder
Built by an investor, for investors. The same factor-based philosophy I use in my own portfolio, made accessible to anyone who’s serious about the process.
See how it ranks your portfolio (free)Who runs this site
My name is Gavin Tan. My approach is quality-tilted and factor-based, across Malaysian and international stocks. MoatMap is the systematic engine I built for my own work, then opened up for anyone who wants the same framework applied to their watchlist.
In numbers: 18+ years of public-market investing, 8+ years of private-equity investing alongside that, and a portfolio I’ve been running for family and friends since 2018.
On the professional side, I’m a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). The training is heavy on financial-statement analysis, audit, and corporate finance, which is useful when reading the ROIC and balance-sheet signals that drive the Quality factor.
Investment philosophy (and what MoatMap operationalises)
Successful investing is participating in durable businesses with attractive economics and growth, for as long as possible. Everything below is a corollary.
Look for high-quality businesses with great value propositions. My anchor is companies that generate ROIC of at least 15%, grow revenue at single-high-digit % or better, convert most of their profits to cash, and treat shareholders fairly. Software, platforms, and marketplace businesses have dominated returns over the past decade for three reasons: network effects, low marginal cost to serve, and scalability. The five moat types are the qualitative version of this; the Quality factor is the quantitative shadow.
Pay up for quality, but with eyes open. Great companies almost always look expensive. The question isn’t whether the multiple is high, it’s whether the economics justify it once you account for long-term growth and the fact that R&D and marketing spend on tech businesses gets expensed where a factory would have been depreciated.
Micro over macro. Understanding a business’s positioning, how it serves customers, and how it defends its value proposition matters more than predicting inflation or trade wars. Macro is outside the business’s control. Position is.
Data-driven, factor-based screening. With the right database, you can rank ~50,000 listed companies globally on Quality, Value, and Momentum, the three factors with the most robust empirical backing (Fama-French, Novy-Marx, Jegadeesh & Titman). For years I have used Stockopedia’s StockRank as my own factor sense-check on every position, and remain a fan. MoatMap is what I built when I needed wider international coverage and integrated AI-driven research that the off-the-shelf tools did not offer. It scores 19,000+ stocks daily across 24 markets.
Be global, with a developed-market bias. The S&P 500 returned ~11% per year in USD over the past 30 years; the FBM KLCI returned under 5% in MYR, and the MYR weakened ~2% per year against the USD over the same window. Concentrating in one market means ignoring an 8-points-per-year structural headwind.
Concentrated portfolio. No more than 25 positions. Diversification is the only free lunch (Markowitz), but past 25 the marginal benefit drops fast and the cost in attention quality rises.
Dogfood everything. The vast majority of my non-EPF assets sit in the same portfolio MoatMap’s ranking helps me build. It’s the same engine I check before sizing any position. Good or bad, I’m in the same boat as the people who use the tool.
Manage emotions like everything else. The Malaysian investor Cold Eye (Fong Siling) talked about combining good “hardware” (analysis) with good “software” (emotional control). The best analysis in the world won’t survive panic-selling at the bottom. The factor screen is a hardware tool that supports good software by removing one source of emotional decision-making: the question of whether the names you’re looking at actually deserve attention.
What MoatMap is (and isn’t)
It is an educational research tool that scores 19,000+ stocks across 24 markets on Quality, Value, and Momentum, the same three factors with the most robust academic backing for predicting long-term returns. It produces deep-dive AI research reports, factor screens, sector hubs, and a portfolio sense-check tool that lets you score your own holdings against the same framework.
It isn’t personalised investment advice. It doesn’t know your risk tolerance, time horizon, tax situation, or the rest of your portfolio. Treat MoatMap’s output the way professional investors treat a Bloomberg or Refinitiv ranking: a high-signal starting point, not a buy list.
Every position in any portfolio should pass the same three tests: you understand the business well enough to articulate the moat, the price is sensible relative to the cycle, and the position size matches both the conviction and the liquidity. The factor scores are inputs to all three.
Put the framework to work
Two ways to start: score your own holdings against the Q/V/M framework, or browse the stocks that already rank highest.
Get in touch
Email [email protected] for product feedback, questions about methodology, or bugs. I read everything personally.
Disclosure: MoatMap is a research and education platform. Information on the site is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personalised investment advice. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Always do your own research and consider consulting a licensed financial advisor in your jurisdiction before making investment decisions.