Stock Industry Review

Stock Industry Review

Purpose

Read 10-K "Competition" sections, MD&A market commentary, and external industry-size data with the eye of a strategy analyst. The financial statements tell you what the company did; this skill tells you what the industry will let it keep doing. Surface moat type and durability, market-share trajectory relative to industry, pricing power evidence, and structural threats. Output Findings that the orchestrator uses to model Bull/Base/Bear scenarios — moat strength caps the multiple expansion, and competitive pressure determines margin sustainability.

When To Use

• Orchestrator dispatches industry review (always-on at all depths; Lite runs the lighter moat-type + share-trend pass only — no full Porter scan).
• User asks "what's the moat", "is losing share", "who are the competitors", "what's the TAM".

When NOT To Use

• Business model classification → stock-business-review
• Margin trends → stock-earnings-quality-review
• Management quality → stock-management-review

Mandatory Gates

1) Execution Integrity Gate

Read 10-K Item 1 "Competition" section AND at least one external source (analyst report, industry association, or comparable peer's 10-K) for triangulation. The company's own description of competition is self-serving.

2) Quantification Gate

"Strong competitive position" is not a Finding. Quantify: market share %, share trend, TAM $, growth rate. If you cannot quantify, suppress.

3) Moat-Type Gate

Generic "competitive advantages" is not a moat. Classify into one of seven types: network effects, brand, scale-cost advantage, switching cost, patent/IP, regulatory, proprietary data. If you cannot fit it into a named type, flag "no identifiable moat".

4) Cyclicality Gate

Pricing-power evidence in a bull market is not pricing power. Look for margin stability across a downturn (2020 or 2022 depending on sector).

Workflow

1. Read 10-K "Competition" subsection + Risk Factors related to competition.
2. Pull at least one peer 10-K for triangulation (peer list from manifest).
3. Estimate market-share trend using revenue YoY vs industry growth (from external source).
4. Classify moat into named type(s); test moat durability.
5. Emit Findings.

Filing-Pattern-Gated Execution Protocol

Execution Order

1. Locate the 10-K Competition section, Risk Factors, segment-level revenue, and peer 10-K for context.
2. For each checklist item, locate evidence.
3. HIT → quantify + classify.
4. MISS → mark NOT FOUND.
5. Report only Findings with named, quantified evidence.
6. Include Filing pre-scan: X/Y items hit, Z confirmed.

Industry Checklist (10 Items)

| ID | Item | Source | Trigger | |---|---|---|---| | IND-01 | Porter Five Forces quick scan | 10-K Competition + Risk Factors | Flag if any one force is "high" without compensating moat | | IND-02 | Market-share trend (relative growth) | Company revenue YoY vs industry growth | Flag if company growth 20% annually | | IND-07 | New-entrant threat (capital + regulatory barriers) | 10-K Risk Factors | Flag if barriers low AND TAM attractive | | IND-08 | Pricing-power evidence (cross-cycle margin stability) | 5-year gross margin through last downturn | Flag if gross margin compressed > 5pp in last downturn | | IND-09 | Supplier/channel concentration risk | 10-K Risk Factors | Flag if > 30% of supply from single vendor (e.g., TSMC dependency) | | IND-10 | Regulatory exposure (sector-specific) | 10-K Item 1 "Regulation" + Risk Factors | Flag if pending regulation could compress margin or restrict TAM |

Severity Rubric

• High: Threatens the long-term thesis. E.g., losing share for 3 consecutive years; no identifiable moat in a competitive market; key regulatory action pending.
• Medium: Caps Bull-scenario probability. E.g., moat is real but narrow (switching cost ~6 months only); supplier concentration material but second-sourcing in progress.
• Low: Context for valuation. E.g., TAM growing 8% (not great, not terrible); regulatory exposure passive.

Evidence Rules

• Market share must cite a number AND the source (whose definition of the market?).
• Moat classification must name the type explicitly; don't write "they have a strong moat".
• TAM citations must include the source (research firm + year) since TAM estimates vary widely.
• Pricing power must reference a specific downturn period.

Output Format

Findings

[High|Medium|Low] Short Title

• ID: IND-NN
• Citation: 10-K section + peer or external source
• Evidence: quantified data + named moat type
• Implication: what this means for the multiple / margin sustainability

Suppressed Items

Execution Status

Filings reviewed: 10-K (FY2024) Item 1 + Item 1A, peer 10-K ()
External sources: 
Filing pre-scan: 10/10 items hit, 4 confirmed as findings

Venture Priors (option-dominated names only — when the orchestrator's dispatch says Optionality Overlay)

When the company is option-dominated (Tesla, pre-profit narrative names), the orchestrator values the unproven engines with a sum-of-the-parts whose option legs need priors you are best placed to supply. For each value-driving venture (e.g. robotaxi, humanoid robots, an AI/software stream), emit a structured prior — and express every uncertain field as a range with a source tag, never a point (a point would be false precision the orchestrator's SOTP engine rejects):

Venture: 
- TAM at maturity: $–$B () — source:  [estimate]
- Company addressable share: –% — basis:  [estimate]
- Take-rate / revenue capture: –% [assumption — state the network/pricing logic]
- Plausible steady-state operating margin:  — analog:  [assumption]
- Independent of the company's other ventures?   ← feeds the venture probability tree

Do NOT assign P(success) or a dollar value — that is the orchestrator's synthesis. Your job is the falsifiable, sourced, ranged inputs. If you cannot source even a range for a field, say so; a missing prior is better than a fabricated one.

Summary

One line: N High / M Medium / K Low — most material: .

No-Finding Case

No industry-position findings — moat real and named, gaining share, pricing power demonstrated through last cycle.
Notable positives: Network-effect moat; share grew from 24% to 31% in 5 years.

Load References Selectively

• references/moat-typology.md — load when classifying moat type or stress-testing moat durability; contains the 7-type taxonomy with named exemplars (Visa network, Costco scale, SAP switching, etc.), and the cyclicality test for pricing power.

Review Discipline

Industry analysis is where retail investors most often hand-wave ("they have AI, they'll win"). Discipline: name the moat type. Quantify the share trend. Cite the TAM source. If you can't, suppress — orchestrator handles a missing IND finding better than a hand-wavy one.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: johnqtcg
• Source: johnqtcg/awesome-skills
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://johnqtcg.github.io/awesome-skills/

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.