壹 护城河是指什么？

       1999年，沃伦巴菲特在《财富》杂志发表了一篇文章，谈到了护城河，并指出“被宽阔的、长流不息的护城河所保护的产品或服务能够为投资者带来烽火的回报”。企业的护城河包括无形资产（品牌、专利和监管牌照）、成本优势、顾客粘性、规模效应和进入壁垒等方面。

        贰 护城河五要素

       无形资产和成本优势都比较好理解。顾客粘性在很大程度上是指顾客使用产品的转换成本。如果转换成本很高，一般顾客很难转换。比如一些手机零部件生产企业，通常在手机品牌商开始设计产品时就参与进来，这种情况下被换掉的概率较低。当然也不排除表现不太好的被淘汰的可能性。规模效应就是指增加新的客户对企业带来的额外生产成本是递减的。通常，规模越大，企业的生产成本越低。当然规模效应是有边界的。比如养奶牛的牧场可能几千头是合适的规模。万头牧场所带来的环境污染以及对草场的压力就会大很多，所以，规模大反而不经济，适度最好。进入壁垒通常是指巨额的资本投入或销售费用的投入。比如芯片行业的投资动辄上千亿美金，这就带来了很大的进入壁垒。

      叁 护城河被打破了？

     如果一家公司能够通过竞争优势，维持至少10年赚取超额收益的能力，则该公司拥有比较宽广的护城河。但护城河不是静态的，而是动态发展的。年初至今，一些拥有宽广护城河的公司跌幅较大。他们的护城河被打破了吗？护城河其实没有被打破，但某些方面确实变得不那么具有竞争力了。比如一家医药公司，其研发费用占收入的比例一直保持在双位数，研发能力保持在市场前列。但是，由于药品集采失利，研发能力无法体现到盈利上，导致企业的业绩低迷，被投资者抛售。再比如一家食品饮料公司，其品牌优势明显，但是由于产品价格高企导致客户粘性下降，市场担心这会影响未来的成长性。因此，有了护城河并不是一劳永逸，企业还需要不断地努力以保持护城河的宽度和深度。否则，就有短期股价大幅调整的风险。

      肆 全球股市上涨

     A股和港股在消费医药股带领下大幅反弹，美股因劳动节休市。8月份中国经济数据即将发布，值得关注。

I. What is the moat?

In 1999 Warren Buffett published a famous article in Fortune magazine, in which he pointed out that a company with a broad moat that can last for a long time can make a lot of money for investors. The so-called moat of a company includes intangible assets such as brands, patents and supervision rules, cost advantage, viscosity of customers, scale effects and entry barriers. 

II. Five elements of a moat 

Intangible assets and cost advantage are easy to understand. A type of viscosity of customers refers to the high costs for a customer to shift to another producer or service provider. A case in point is in mobile components and parts producers. They usually participate in the mobile phone design of mobile brands from the beginning and adjust their production accordingly. Mobile brands would face big cost to shift to other components and parts producers. Scale effects are also familiar to investors. Yet scale effects have boundaries. It is not the truth that the bigger the scale the better the results. Take the example of raising milk cows, a couple of thousands milk cows have scale effects. But 10 thousand orabove would cause environmental issues and put a pressure to the grasslands. A type of entry barriers refer to big capital expenditure. This is especially true in foundry sector, in which US$ 100 billion capital expenditure is not unusual. 

III. The moat can change

The moat is not static but changes from time to time. Year-to-date stock prices of some companies with broad moats have fallen sharply, implying  that their moats are not strong in some aspects. Take the example of an innovative drug producer it has maintained its research and development cost to its sales ratio at double digits for years and enjoy competitive advantages in innovation drugs. However, due to that it lost in bids to national mass procurement of drugs its innovation advantage can not be turned into profits. In summary a company should make efforts to maintain its moat as long as possible.

IV. Global stock markets rose 

A share and HK stocks rose.Healthcare and food and beverage sector led the rally. The US stock market closed for Labor Day holiday.  

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