Munger Mode rating: 4 out of 5 — Buy. 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 where the economics are so favorable, and the competitive position so entrenched, that a reasonably intelligent management team merely has to avoid ruining it. Waste Management is such a business. It owns the largest network of landfills in North America — assets that are, for all practical purposes, impossible to replicate because society has decided it will not permit new ones. Around those landfills it has built dense collection routes, transfer stations, and recycling facilities that give it a structural cost advantage and genuine pricing power, demonstrated year after year in the numbers. The business earns roughly 30% on equity, converts earnings to cash at better than 100% this year, raises prices faster than its costs rise, and returns billions to shareholders.
Recent filings analysed: 8-K (2026-08-26), 10-Q (2026-07-29), 8-K (2026-07-28), 8-K (2026-05-14).
Stock screener · Superinvestor 13F holdings · Analyst sentiment · Market valuation