Munger Mode rating: 3 out of 5 — Hold. Our own rating from the research report below, on business quality first: moat durability and management, with price separating the top three.
We have spent our lives looking for businesses that sell simple products people buy over and over, under brand names they trust, requiring little capital to grow. Masco owns two such franchises: Behr paint and Delta faucets. The economics are genuinely attractive — mid-30s returns on invested capital, capital expenditures around 2% of sales, and a decade of shrinking the share count by nearly half. But two things keep our wallets closed at today's price. First, roughly 40% of everything Masco sells goes through a single doorway — The Home Depot — and the fellow who owns the only doorway to your customer ultimately holds the better hand. Second, the headline numbers this year are flattered by a one-time $85-95 million tariff refund windfall; strip it out and the underlying business earned essentially nothing more than it did a year ago, on volumes that are still falling.
Recent filings analysed: 10-Q (2026-07-29), 8-K (2026-07-29), 8-K (2026-05-14), 10-Q (2026-04-22).
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