How Scoring Works
Every stock gets a score from 0 to 100, built from 5 equal-weight pillars: Business Strength, Financial Safety, Cash & Dividends, Price Fairness, and Risk. No pillar counts more than another, and this page uses the exact same rules the score itself is built from.
How a pillar earns its score
Every measure inside a pillar — like ROE or Debt-to-Equity — lands in one of three bands: Strong, Okay, or Weak. There's no in-between; a value either clears a bar or it doesn't.
Strong earns 2 points, Okay earns 1, Weak earns 0. A pillar's score is points earned ÷ points possible × 100 — a measure marked N/A is skipped and doesn't count toward the total either way.
A pillar (or the overall score) reads Strong at 63 or above, Okay from 32 to 62, and Weak below 32.
The overall score
The overall 0–100 score is the plain average of the 5 pillar scores — 4 for banks, since Financial Safety doesn't apply to them (see below). If a pillar has fewer than 2 usable measures, it's excluded and shown greyed rather than scored unfairly, and the average covers whatever pillars remain. If too few pillars can be scored at all — fewer than 4 (3 for banks) — the stock gets no number, just an "insufficient data" badge. A score built on half the picture would mislead more than help.
Is this a good business that earns well and keeps growing?
- Return on Equity (ROE) — For every RM100 of shareholders' money, how much profit the company makes a year. Higher = the business works your money harder. Formula: net profit ÷ shareholders' equity × 100 (latest year).Strong ≥ 15% · Okay 8–15% · Weak < 8%
- 4-Year Revenue Growth — How fast sales grew per year over the last 4 years. Steady growth beats one good year. Formula: (latest revenue ÷ revenue 3 years ago)^(1/3) − 1, shown as %/yr. Strong ≥ +8%/yr, Okay 0 to +8%/yr, Weak below 0.Strong ≥ +8%/yr · Okay 0 to +8%/yr · Weak < 0%/yr (zero/negative endpoints → N/A)
- 4-Year Profit Growth — How fast net profits grew per year over the last 4 years. Steady growth beats one lucky year. Formula: (latest profit ÷ profit 3 years ago)^(1/3) − 1, shown as %/yr. Strong ≥ +8%/yr, Okay 0 to +8%/yr, Weak below 0 or any loss year.Strong ≥ +8%/yr · Okay 0 to +8%/yr · Weak < 0%/yr, or any loss year
- Net Profit Margin — Out of every RM100 in sales, how much becomes actual profit after all costs. Formula: net profit ÷ revenue × 100 (latest year).Strong ≥ 15% · Okay 5–15% · Weak < 5%
If tough times come, can the company survive? Debt and liquidity live here.
- Debt-to-Equity — How much the company borrows compared to its own money. Lower = safer, less owed to banks. Formula: total debt ÷ shareholders' equity (latest year).Strong ≤ 0.5× · Okay 0.5–1× · Weak > 1×
- Current Ratio — Can it pay bills due within a year? Above 1 means short-term assets cover short-term bills. Formula: current assets ÷ current liabilities (latest year).Strong ≥ 1.5× · Okay 1–1.5× · Weak < 1×
- Interest Coverage — How many times over profits can pay the interest on its loans. Higher = debt is comfortable, not suffocating. Formula: operating profit (EBIT) ÷ interest expense (latest year).Strong ≥ 5× · Okay 2–5× · Weak < 2×
Does real cash come in — and does some of it reach shareholders?
- Dividend Quality — How big the dividend is — and whether you can rely on it. Starts from the yield (yearly 'pocket money' as a % of the share price): above 6% = Strong (beats typical EPF returns), 3–6% = Okay, below 3% = Weak. Then reliability, counted over the same 4 years: 0–1 down-year = no penalty, 2 down-years = drops one level, 3+ down-years (or the dividend stopped or was never paid) = Weak.Strong ≥ 6% · Okay 3–6% · Weak < 3%Reliability, same 4-yr window: 0–1 down-year = no penalty · 2 down-years = drop one level · 3 or more down-years, suspended, or never paid = Weak
- Operating Cash Flow — Cash the actual business brings in. Profit is an opinion — cash is a fact. No formula — read straight off the cash flow statement; judged on positive years and growth over the last 4 years.Strong positive every year AND latest ≥ 110% of the first year · Okay otherwise positive · Weak latest year negative, or negative in 2 or more years
- Free Cash Flow — Cash left over after paying to maintain and grow the business. This is what funds dividends. Formula: operating cash flow − capital expenditure, judged over the last 4 years.Strong positive in 3 of the last 4 years (latest positive) · Okay otherwise positive · Weak latest year negative
- Cash & Cash Equivalents — The company's rainy-day money in the bank. Growing cash = breathing room; shrinking cash = pressure. Rule: healthy if cash grew over 4 years AND covers short-term debt.Strong cash grew AND covers short-term debt · Okay one of the two · Weak neither
- Dividend Payout Ratio — How much of profit is paid out as dividends. Too high can be hard to sustain; a healthy middle is ideal. Formula: dividends paid ÷ net profit × 100 (latest year). Shown for information only — it doesn't affect this company's score. Dividend Quality above already captures the dividend; the payout level itself is only scored for banks and REITs, where it's a core health signal. Formula: dividends paid ÷ net profit × 100.Strong 30–70% · Okay 10–30% or 70–90% · Weak < 10% or > 90%
A great company can still be a bad deal if the price is too high.
- P/E Ratio — How many years of current profit you're paying for. Lower usually means a fairer price. Formula: share price ÷ earnings per share (trailing 12 months).Strong ≤ 12× · Okay 12–20× · Weak > 20×
- P/B Ratio — Price compared to the company's net assets ('book value'). High P/B means you're paying a premium. Formula: share price ÷ book value per share (latest year).Strong ≤ 1× · Okay 1–2× · Weak > 2×
- PEG Ratio — P/E adjusted for growth. Around 1 means the price roughly matches how fast profits grow. Formula: P/E ÷ yearly profit growth %.Strong ≤ 1 · Okay 1–2 · Weak > 2
How steady is the story? Bumpy profits and rising debt make a stock riskier.
- Earnings Consistency — How steady profits were over 4 years. Wild swings make the future harder to trust. Rule: counts down-years out of 4 — 0–1 = Strong, 2 = Okay, more (or any loss year) = Weak.Strong 0–1 down-year · Okay 2 down-years · Weak 3 or more down-years, or any loss year
- Debt Trend (4yr) — Is borrowing going up or down over time? Falling debt = getting safer. Formula: (latest debt − debt 3 years ago) ÷ debt 3 years ago × 100. Fell >10% = Strong; rose >10% = Weak.Strong fell more than 10% · Okay within ±10% · Weak rose more than 10%
- Share Count Trend (4yr) — Is the company issuing lots of new shares? More shares = your slice of the pie shrinks, even if the business grows. Formula: yearly growth rate of shares outstanding over 4 years. Strong below +2%/yr, Okay +2 to +8%/yr, Weak above +8%/yr.Strong < +2%/yr · Okay +2 to +8%/yr · Weak > +8%/yr
- Inventory vs Sales (4yr) — Is unsold stock piling up faster than sales are growing? Inventory growing much faster than revenue often means products aren't selling. Formula: inventory's yearly growth − revenue's yearly growth over 4 years, in percentage points (pp). Strong ≤ 0pp (inventory in line with or slower than sales), Okay 0 to +10pp, Weak above +10pp. Companies with no inventory (banks, REITs, service businesses) are skipped.Strong ≤ 0pp/yr · Okay 0 to +10pp/yr · Weak > +10pp/yr (no inventory → N/A)
N/A vs Weak — not the same thing
N/A means a measure was skipped — the data wasn't available from the source, or the measure doesn't apply to this company's sector (a bank's current ratio, for example). It's excluded from scoring and isn't held against the company. Weak is different: it means the measure WAS calculated and came out poorly — including cases where a loss or negative equity makes a healthy number impossible, which scores an automatic Weak rather than N/A. Losing money, or owing more than you own, is a warning sign worth seeing — not a data gap to hide.
Fewer than 2 of this pillar's measures are available, so scoring it wouldn't be fair. The whole pillar is skipped; the overall score is the average of the remaining pillars.
Too much data is missing to give this stock a fair overall score — a number built on half the picture would mislead more than help.
Banks: scored on 4 pillars, not 5
Banks run on customer deposits, which count as "debt" in the usual formulas — so a handful of measures would be misleading if scored the normal way:
- Debt-to-Equity — Banks work differently — customer deposits count as 'debt', so this measure would be misleading. It's skipped for banks and doesn't affect the score.
- Current Ratio — Banks work differently — customer deposits count as 'debt', so this measure would be misleading. It's skipped for banks and doesn't affect the score.
- Interest Coverage — Banks work differently — customer deposits count as 'debt', so this measure would be misleading. It's skipped for banks and doesn't affect the score.
- Debt Trend (4yr) — Banks work differently — customer deposits count as 'debt', so this measure would be misleading. It's skipped for banks and doesn't affect the score.
- Operating Cash Flow — A bank's day-to-day business is money itself — new loans and customer deposits flow straight through its cash flow, so this number swings wildly for reasons that say nothing about health. It's skipped for banks and doesn't affect the score.
- Free Cash Flow — A bank's day-to-day business is money itself — new loans and customer deposits flow straight through its cash flow, so this number swings wildly for reasons that say nothing about health. It's skipped for banks and doesn't affect the score.
- Dividend Payout Ratio — Banks typically pay out 50–90% of profit — more than the universal 'ideal middle' band used here. Read a bank's Okay on this row with that in mind.
Bank safety is instead watched by Bank Negara Malaysia. A bank's overall score is the average of its other 4 pillars, so it isn't directly comparable to a 5-pillar score from another sector.
REITs: their own thresholds
REITs (property trusts) are legally required to distribute most of their income, run structurally thin cash balances, and borrow against property differently from ordinary companies. A handful of measures use REIT-specific thresholds instead of the universal ones:
- Current Ratio — REITs collect steady rent and keep little spare cash while rolling over property loans, so a current ratio below 1 is normal for them. It's skipped for REITs and doesn't affect the score.
- Dividend Payout Ratio Strong ≥ 85% · Okay 70–85% · Weak < 70%
- Debt-to-Equity Strong ≤ 0.8× · Okay 0.8–1.2× · Weak > 1.2×
- Interest Coverage Strong ≥ 3× · Okay 1.5–3× · Weak < 1.5×
- P/E Ratio Strong ≤ 15× · Okay 15–25× · Weak > 25×
- P/B Ratio Strong ≤ 1.5× · Okay 1.5–3× · Weak > 3×
Spike guard: one lucky year can't buy a Strong
A one-off gain — a property sale, an insurance payout, a disposal — can make a single year's profit-based measures look spectacular without being repeatable. So these measures are capped at Okay, never Strong, when the latest year's profit is at least 3× the best of the earlier years in the window, or when a loss year sits anywhere in the window:
- Return on Equity (ROE)
- Net Profit Margin
- P/E Ratio
- PEG Ratio
- 4-Year Profit Growth
The cap only pulls a Strong down to Okay — a genuinely Weak measure still stays Weak. This number looks Strong, but the latest profit jumped suddenly (or follows a loss year). Profits this good are often one-time events — a property sale, an insurance payout — not repeatable earnings, so the score is capped at Okay until a repeat year proves it.
Counting down-years
Earnings Consistency and Dividend Quality's reliability check both work the same way, over the same 4-year window: 0–1 down-year costs nothing, 2 down-years drops one band, and 3 or more — or any outright loss year, for Earnings Consistency — is a hard Weak. A dividend that was stopped, or never paid at all, is also a hard Weak. Reliability matters as much as size.
Warnings — flags, not scores
A stock's page may show a Warnings section calling out patterns worth a second look. None of these change the score or any pillar — they're a nudge to read further, not a penalty.
Critical Weakness: a pillar scores very low (under 25) — even if the overall score looks fine, this pillar needs a closer look.
Value Trap: This stock looks cheap on Price Fairness, but Business Strength is Weak — it may deserve to be cheap, not undervalued.
High Yield: The dividend yield looks attractive partly because the share price is near its 52-week low — check why before assuming the dividend is safe.
Profit Spike: One or more measures show a sudden profit jump (or follow a loss year) and were capped to avoid overstating the score — see the "?" notes on the affected rows.
Recent Loss: This company lost money in at least one recent year — several measures reflect that. Read the Business and Price sections carefully.
What this score is — and isn't
This score evaluates financial performance, not brand strength, management quality, or competitive advantage.
Data is refreshed periodically rather than live — each stock page shows the date its market snapshot (price, 52-week range, market cap) was captured, and the figures inside the score itself come from the most recent annual filings available at that time. This is an educational tool, not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock. Always do your own research, or speak to a licensed financial adviser, before investing.