The scoring system, in full

What the scores actually measure

Q: What does the Valuation score measure?

Whether the price you pay today is attractive or expensive relative to the company's earnings and cash flow. An excellent company bought at the wrong price is a mediocre investment. Valuation is what separates the quality of a business from the quality of the deal you are getting. It is also the dimension most exposed to market mood, which makes fixed thresholds useful: they do not move when sentiment does.

Q: What does the Growth score measure?

How consistently revenue, net income and free cash flow have grown over five years. Growth is what compounds over a holding period measured in years. The three indicators are deliberately read together: revenue that grows while cash flow does not is a warning that the growth is not being converted into anything the owner can use.

Q: What does the Distribution score measure?

How reliably the company returns cash to shareholders, through dividends and buybacks, and whether it can keep doing so. A dividend is a promise a company has to fund every year, which makes the payout ratio a discipline test as much as an income measure. A high yield paid out of an unsustainable share of profits is a cut waiting to happen; consistency over years says more than the headline rate.

Q: What does the Solvency score measure?

How much debt the company carries relative to its equity and its earnings, and whether its cash flow can service that debt. This is the dimension that decides whether a bad year is a setback or an ending. Debt is what turns a temporary drop in earnings into a permanent loss of capital, so for a long-term holder solvency is less about upside than about making sure the position survives long enough for the other seven dimensions to matter.

Q: What does the Returns score measure?

How efficiently the company turns the capital it holds — equity, assets, invested and employed capital — into profit. This is the closest thing to a measure of business quality. A company earning 20% on invested capital can reinvest its profits and compound; one earning 5% needs ever more capital to grow and quietly erodes the owner's return. Over a long holding period, the rate of return on capital tends to dominate the entry price.

Q: What does the Profitability score measure?

How much of each unit of revenue the company keeps at every level, from gross margin down to free cash flow. Reading the margins in sequence shows where the money goes: a strong gross margin that collapses by the net line points to a cost structure problem, not a pricing one. A high and stable gross margin is also the most common financial trace of a real competitive advantage — it means customers accept the price.

Q: What does the Sustainability score measure?

Exposure to environmental, social and governance risks. These risks rarely show up in this year's accounts and often show up in a later year's, through litigation, regulation or a governance failure. For a holding period measured in years, they belong in the picture. This dimension is being built and is not yet part of the overall score.

Robust Invest rates a company on eight dimensions, built from 30 financial indicators in service today. This page explains what each one measures, why it matters for a long-term investor, and the exact thresholds for all four tiers. Nothing here is a black box: these are the same numbers the app uses.

Four tiers, one reading

Every indicator is placed in one of four tiers against fixed thresholds. Those indicator tiers roll up into a score per dimension, and the dimensions roll up into one overall robustness score.

DiamondExceptional quality, top-tier fundamentals.

GoldA strong company with solid fundamentals.

SilverFragile fundamentals, several weaknesses that shouldn't be ignored.

BronzeConcerning fundamentals, high long-term risk.

The eight dimensions

Performance

What it measures. How the share price has behaved against the S&P 500 over 5, 10 and 20 years.

Why it matters. A business can look good on paper and still have destroyed shareholder value for a decade. Comparing against a broad index over long periods is the honest test: if you could have simply bought the index instead, the company has to justify the difference. Short windows are noise, which is why the shortest here is five years.

Indicators inside 3

Indicator	What it looks at	Diamond	Gold	Silver	Bronze
S&P500 Outperformance (5Y)	S&P 500 Outperformance (5Y) compares the price change of a stock with the S&P 500 over the last 5 years, using today's price and the price exactly 5 years ago for both.	≥ 50%	30% – 50%	10% – 30%	< 10%
S&P500 Outperformance (10Y)	S&P 500 Outperformance (10Y) compares the price change of a stock with the S&P 500 over the last 10 years, using today's price and the price exactly 10 years ago for both.	≥ 120%	60% – 120%	20% – 60%	< 20%
S&P500 Outperformance (20Y)	S&P 500 Outperformance (20Y) compares the price change of a stock with the S&P 500 over the last 20 years, using today's price and the price exactly 20 years ago for both.	≥ 150%	120% – 150%	60% – 120%	< 60%

Valuation

What it measures. Whether the price you pay today is attractive or expensive relative to the company's earnings and cash flow.

Why it matters. An excellent company bought at the wrong price is a mediocre investment. Valuation is what separates the quality of a business from the quality of the deal you are getting. It is also the dimension most exposed to market mood, which makes fixed thresholds useful: they do not move when sentiment does.

Indicators inside 4

Indicator	What it looks at	Diamond	Gold	Silver	Bronze
PER	Price-to-Earnings ratio compares a company's share price to its earnings per share.	< 17x	17x – 25x	25x – 30x	≥ 30x
PEG	Price/Earnings to Growth ratio compares a company's P/E ratio to its expected earnings growth.	< 1.5x	1.5x – 3x	3x – 5x	≥ 5x
P/FCF	Price-to-Free-Cash Flow ratio compares a company's market price to the free cash flow it generates.	< 17	17 – 25	25 – 29	≥ 29
FCF Yield	Free Cash Flow Yield measures how much free cash flow a company generates relative to its market value.	≥ 6%	4% – 6%	2.5% – 4%	< 2.5%

Growth

What it measures. How consistently revenue, net income and free cash flow have grown over five years.

Why it matters. Growth is what compounds over a holding period measured in years. The three indicators are deliberately read together: revenue that grows while cash flow does not is a warning that the growth is not being converted into anything the owner can use.

Indicators inside 3

Indicator	What it looks at	Diamond	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Revenue Growth (5Y)	Revenue Growth (5Y) shows the average annual increase in a company's revenue over the past five years.	≥ 10%	7% – 10%	4% – 7%	< 4%
Net Income Growth (5Y)	Net Income Growth (5Y) measures the average annual growth in net profit over the last five years.	≥ 10%	7% – 10%	4% – 7%	< 4%
FCF Growth (5Y)	FCF Growth measures how a company's Free Cash Flow increases or decreases over time.	≥ 10%	6% – 10%	4% – 6%	< 4%

Distribution

What it measures. How reliably the company returns cash to shareholders, through dividends and buybacks, and whether it can keep doing so.

Why it matters. A dividend is a promise a company has to fund every year, which makes the payout ratio a discipline test as much as an income measure. A high yield paid out of an unsustainable share of profits is a cut waiting to happen; consistency over years says more than the headline rate.

Indicators inside 5

Indicator	What it looks at	Diamond	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Dividend Consistency	Dividend Consistency reflects how reliably a company has paid dividends over time.	≥ 20	10 – 20	5 – 10	< 5
Dividend Yield	Dividend Yield measures the annual dividend paid by a company relative to its share price.	6% – 8%	3% – 6% or 8% – 10%	1% – 3% or 10% – 12%	< 1% or ≥ 12%
Dividend Per Share		—	—	—	—
Payout Ratio	Payout Ratio measures the percentage of a company's earnings that is paid out to shareholders as dividends.	< 50%	50% – 70%	70% – 80%	≥ 80%
Dividend Growth (5Y)	Dividend Growth (5Y) measures the average annual increase in a company's dividend payments over the past five years.	≥ 15%	10% – 15%	5% – 10%	< 5%

Solvency

What it measures. How much debt the company carries relative to its equity and its earnings, and whether its cash flow can service that debt.

Why it matters. This is the dimension that decides whether a bad year is a setback or an ending. Debt is what turns a temporary drop in earnings into a permanent loss of capital, so for a long-term holder solvency is less about upside than about making sure the position survives long enough for the other seven dimensions to matter.

Indicators inside 4

Indicator	What it looks at	Diamond	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Debt/Equity	Debt-to-Equity ratio compares a company's total debt to its shareholder equity.	< 50%	50% – 70%	70% – 80%	≥ 80%
Debt/Ebitda	Debt-to-Ebitda ratio compares total debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.	< 1.5	1.5 – 3	3 – 4	≥ 4
Cash Flow/Debt	Cash Flow to Debt ratio measures the proportion of a company's total debt that could be repaid using its operating cash flow in a given period.	≥ 0.5	0.25 – 0.5	0.1 – 0.25	< 0.1
Interest Coverage	Interest Coverage ratio measures how easily a company can pay interest on its debt using its operating income.	≥ 5	3 – 5	1.5 – 3	< 1.5

Returns

What it measures. How efficiently the company turns the capital it holds — equity, assets, invested and employed capital — into profit.

Why it matters. This is the closest thing to a measure of business quality. A company earning 20% on invested capital can reinvest its profits and compound; one earning 5% needs ever more capital to grow and quietly erodes the owner's return. Over a long holding period, the rate of return on capital tends to dominate the entry price.

Indicators inside 6

Indicator	What it looks at	Diamond	Gold	Silver	Bronze
ROIC	Return On Invested Capital measures the return a company generates on the capital invested by both shareholders and lenders.	≥ 20%	13% – 20%	8% – 13%	< 8%
ROCE	Return On Capital Employed measures how efficiently a company generates profits from the capital it uses in its business (both equity and debt).	≥ 20%	13% – 20%	8% – 13%	< 8%
ROE	Return On Equity measures how much profit a company generates from the money invested by its shareholders.	≥ 20%	15% – 20%	10% – 15%	< 10%
ROA	Return On Asset measures how efficiently a company uses its assets to generate profit.	≥ 9%	5% – 9%	3% – 5%	< 3%
Asset Turnover	Asset Turnover measures how efficiently a company uses its assets to generate revenue.	≥ 1.5	1 – 1.5	0.5 – 1	< 0.5
Retention Ratio	Retention Ratio (also called plowback ratio) measures the proportion of net earnings a company keeps to reinvest in its operations rather than distributing as dividends.	≥ 70%	50% – 70%	30% – 50%	< 30%

Profitability

What it measures. How much of each unit of revenue the company keeps at every level, from gross margin down to free cash flow.

Why it matters. Reading the margins in sequence shows where the money goes: a strong gross margin that collapses by the net line points to a cost structure problem, not a pricing one. A high and stable gross margin is also the most common financial trace of a real competitive advantage — it means customers accept the price.

Indicators inside 5

Indicator	What it looks at	Diamond	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Gross Margin	Gross Margin measures the percentage of revenue remaining after subtracting the direct costs of producing goods or services.	≥ 40%	30% – 40%	15% – 30%	< 15%
Operating Margin	Operating Margin measures the percentage of revenue remaining after paying all operating expenses, excluding interest and taxes.	≥ 20%	10% – 20%	5% – 10%	< 5%
Net Margin	Net Margin represents the percentage of revenue that remains as profit after all expenses, including operating costs, taxes, and interest.	≥ 20%	10% – 20%	5% – 10%	< 5%
FCF Margin	Free Cash Flow Margin measures the percentage of revenue that turns into free cash flow after operating expenses and capital expenditures.	≥ 20%	10% – 20%	5% – 10%	< 5%
Operating Cash Flow Margin	Operating Cash Flow Margin measures the percentage of revenue that is converted into cash from core operations.	≥ 20%	10% – 20%	5% – 10%	< 5%

Sustainability

Coming soon

What it measures. Exposure to environmental, social and governance risks.

Why it matters. These risks rarely show up in this year's accounts and often show up in a later year's, through litigation, regulation or a governance failure. For a holding period measured in years, they belong in the picture. This dimension is being built and is not yet part of the overall score.

This dimension is still being built. Its indicators and thresholds will be published here once it ships in the app, and it does not count towards the overall score for now.

See it on a real company

Every score and indicator on this page is explained inside the app, on any listed company in the world, in two clicks.

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