# MeritValue

> MeritValue is a free website (plus an iOS app, an API and an MCP server) that values about 6,000 US-listed companies from their SEC filings. A deterministic, version-controlled engine recomputes every valuation nightly, and every figure links to the SEC filing and XBRL tag it came from. It answers two owner's questions: do I want to own this business, and is the price fair? It is education, not investment advice.

## What it does
- Reads each company's XBRL financial data from **SEC EDGAR** (companyfacts) — revenue, net income, operating cash flow, capital expenditure, debt, cash, diluted shares — and keeps the accession number of every figure.
- Runs a deterministic valuation engine (currently v0.6.0) after the nightly data refresh (08:30 UTC). Same inputs, same answer; every methodology change bumps the version.
- Shows each company on one page: five years of fundamentals with footnoted receipts, an ownership "slice", business-quality signals (return on invested capital vs cost of capital, share-count change), the model values, and an interactive price question.
- Models refuse where they don't apply and say why (for example the cash-flow DCF on companies with negative free cash flow, or on banks, which report no capital expenditure). A refusal is shown, never replaced with another number.
- **No market prices.** MeritValue has no market-data licence; the price is always entered by the reader.

## Valuation models
- **DCF · Growth Exit 10Y / 5Y** — discounted free cash flow: base = median of the last 3 fiscal years' FCF; growth = the company's own historical FCF growth, clamped to 0–20%; discount rate = WACC built from the US 10-year Treasury (treasury.gov) plus an equity risk premium (currently 5%, from Damodaran's implied ERP); terminal growth 2.5%.
- **Earnings Power Value** — normalized earnings (median of the last 5 fiscal years' net income) divided by the cost of equity, assuming zero growth.
- **Graham Number** — √(22.5 × EPS × book value per share); a conservative ceiling on what a defensive investor should pay (22.5 = Graham's max P/E 15 × max P/B 1.5), not a target.
- **FFO · Capitalized** — the REIT model: NAREIT funds from operations (3-year median) capitalized at the cost of equity.
- **Reverse DCF** — interactive on every company page with a DCF base: type a price, see the growth that price implies.
- Methodology and engine changelog: https://www.meritvalue.com/methodology

## Pricing
- **Free** — every company page on the website, no account, no limit. A free API key gives 1,000 requests per 24h.
- **Analyst** — $9/month: 5,000 API/MCP requests per 24h and full-universe screening.
- **Desk** — $19/month: 50,000 API/MCP requests per 24h and full-universe screening.
- iOS app: 5 companies per month free; an in-app subscription lifts the limit.
- Details: https://www.meritvalue.com/pricing

## For agents and developers
- MCP server (remote, HTTP): `https://mcp.meritvalue.com/mcp` — send `Authorization: Bearer <key>`. Tools: get_thesis, get_business_quality, get_intrinsic_value, get_expected_return, get_fundamentals, search_companies, screen_undervalued.
- REST API: `https://www.meritvalue.com/api/v1` — /companies/{ticker}, /valuations, /quality, /thesis, /expected-return?price=, /search, /screen, /glossary. Every number carries {cik, accession, xbrlTag, unit, period, form}.
- Free key: https://www.meritvalue.com/api-keys
- Open-source skills that use the MCP: https://github.com/akoskomuves/meritvalue-skills

## Key pages
- Home: https://www.meritvalue.com/
- Example company page: https://www.meritvalue.com/t/AAPL
- Every company, A–Z: https://www.meritvalue.com/companies
- Screener: https://www.meritvalue.com/screener
- Learn (how to read a company like an owner): https://www.meritvalue.com/learn
- Journal (findings from the nightly run): https://www.meritvalue.com/journal
- iOS app: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6795664202?pt=120404971&ct=meritvalue-llms&mt=8
- Support: https://www.meritvalue.com/support

## Contact
MeritValue is made by Tall Poppy Studio (https://tallpoppystudio.com). Email: akos@tallpoppystudio.com