MORN Forum Topics
- All Comments on MORN
- General Discussion on MORN
- Morningstar: Impressive, But Pricey [view article]
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
- Under The Radar News - Tuesday [view article]
- Morningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research? [view article]
- Morningstar: Benefiting From ‘The Spitzer Push’ [view article]
- Where Morningstar Goes Wrong on ETFs [view article]
- Financial Stocks That Have Avoided the Credit Crunch [view article]
- Morningstar: Stealth Growth Stock [view article]
- Massive Capitulation: Morningstar Revisited [view article]
- Three Reasons to Wake Up to Morningstar [view article]
- Morningstar's ETF Ratings -- What's the Use? [view article]
loading ...Recent MORN Articles
- Morningstar: Impressive, But Pricey
- Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
- Under The Radar News - Tuesday
- Morningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research?
- Morningstar Poised for Growth
- Morningstar Offers Green Investors Dull Advice
- Where Morningstar Goes Wrong on ETFs
- Financial Stocks That Have Avoided the Credit Crunch
- Morningstar: Stealth Growth Stock
- Morningstar's Joe Mansueto - Last of a Breed
- Full List of Articles »
Morningstar: Impressive, But Pricey [view article]
Hi Zachary,I have recently entered a post about MORN. Could this also explain the recent drop in M* ‘s stock?
Link to my post:
www.financial-planning...=
Excerpts:
In the news:
"While Morningstar certainly has carved out its niche and made a name for itself arming individual investors with mutual fund data and insight, the company plans to increase its focus on financial advisers and institutions, or the "pros" eager to pay for quality research. That's according to an interview with Morningstar CEO Joe Mansueto in this week's issue of BusinessWeek.
As Morningstar currently derives only 22% of its revenues from products and services for the individual investor, growing the professional side of the ledger "is a natural extension of our business," Mansueto said. Institutional business, which includes sub-advisory work, grew an impressive 58% last year, now accounting for more than 50% of revenue."
A question:
Many posters on Morningstar s (M* s) discussion forums, mostly DIYs investors, attack paid financial advisors. However, M* gets almost all of its revenue from financial advisors and institutions. So why does M* Inc., took upon itself to maintain and pay employees to administer these advisors' bashers forums? Recently, a financial advisor tried to post at the Vanguard Diehards discussion forum on M* website with the alias of " Insurance Man " (IM). Immediately, bully posters over there started to attack this IM. Consequently , the moderator (M* employees) started to remove or transfer IM's posts. Nothing would convince that moderator that paid financial advisors have the right to post there also.
Reply
Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
Correcting a myth - regarding GM and Toyota Motor (TM).Many believe that GM is no. 1 globally as recently published it outsold Toyota by 1000 or 3000 cars in 2007.
In reality, GM's revenue was $181B in 2007 (01/2007-12/2007) down considerably on YOY. Toyota's revenue was $252B in FY2007 (04/2007-03/2008) up nearly 10%.
It is high time the U.S. auto industry started dealing with the harsh reality before it is too late. Hype and spin can go just so far...
CrossProfit Reply
Morningstar: Impressive, But Pricey [view article]
Agreed. Still, good management. wallastoninvestments.c.../ ReplyNetratings
Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
Wow - even we are impressed with comScore's numbers! Good job comScore! ReplyWall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
I'm really liking the earnings reports tacked onto the Wall Street Breakfast. Thanks. ReplyEli Hoffmann
Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
Thanks. Fixed. ReplyWall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [view article]
Market climbed in Asia Friday. Nikkei +20.5% to 14,049. Is +20.5% a typo? ReplyEditors
General Discussion on MORN
Is this a buy or a sell? ReplyUnder The Radar News - Tuesday [view article]
More analysts diss Merrill. - Perhaps these analysts should be involved in assessment of their employers. They seem to have more insight into financial health of this troubled market than people who run it. Isn't is great to be paid for just an opinion and have no accountability for an outcome? Oh, wait, don't their bosses are doing just the same for even more money? Why do we care what they estimate? ReplyMorningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research? [view article]
Jan, I think the permanent portfolio is considered risky because they compare it to their fund category, most of which is invested in super safe stuff like treasuries. In contrast, the Permanent Portfolio tends to hold big positions in stuff like Gold and Silver, etc. These things tend to be very volatile.You may make the argument that gold and silver are "not risky in the long run" in that they are good inflation hedges. In the last several years, you might be right... However, over the very long run, they have done a mediocre job at best. If you had bought gold in 1980 for $900, you would probably be kicking yourself now.
Reply
Morningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research? [view article]
Hi Kevin.A few corrections and clarifications:
- You indicated upthread that our approach assumes the whole (ETF fair value estimate) is worth more than the sum of its parts (individual stock fair value estimates). That's factually incorrect. An ETF's fair value estimate, under our approach, is worth no more than the sum of its parts—it’s simply a weighted-average based on the weighting of the holdings and their fair value estimates. The whole can potentially exceed the sum of the parts only from a risk standpoint (i.e., benefits of diversification make ETF less volatile than its component stocks).
- In your piece you suggested that the expected return that I cited for XLF covered a 52-week time horizon. Not so. Our stock, and ETF, ratings assume a three-year holding period. In other words, one would expect the convergence of price to fair value to take place over that three-year horizon. Meaning that your math is incorrect.
- You suggest upthread that the valuation-centric ETF research that we're conducting is less useful since it fails to help investors who are using ETFs as part of a long-term strategic allocation. Never mind that we're continuing to provide research that addresses an ETF's merits as a potential portfolio building block (i.e., are fees low? is it tax-efficient? does the portfolio construction make sense? has it tracked the benchmark? etc.).
- In the piece, you indicate that our approach doesn't adequately account for 'uncertainty'. Yet, our approach explicitly allows for the uncertainty inherent in our forecasts. It's called a 'margin of safety' and it's the discount to our fair value estimate that we demand before recommending a security. The more uncertain the forecasts underpinning a fair value estimate, the larger the margin of safety we demand before recommending a security, and vice versa. Our assessment of a security's uncertainty, in turn, is a function of its quality (intractable competitive advantages, like P&G, vs., say, some flaky biotech firm) and non-financial 'event risk' (i.e., big tobacco litigation, Vioxx settlements, etc.). It’s a very similar approach to the one popularized by Warren Buffett.
I hope this is useful.
Regards,
Jeff Ptak
Morningstar, Inc. Reply
Jacome
Morningstar: Benefiting From ‘The Spitzer Push’ [view article]
Stock was on a tear and pulled back to 60 amid overall market/systemic weakness - view this level as a buying op, reit buy, and would accumulate @ 50 if we can get it.MORN remains a niche leader with proven management and a potential takeover candidate when growth slows 2-3 years out; 41 forward PE remains biggest risk. Reply
Morningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research? [view article]
Morningstar's self-analysis of their star rating system performance for stocks is atnews.morningstar.com/a...
Pretty candid. In summary, their stock ratings did poorly in 2007, but beat the S&P 500 in four of the past six years.
Reply
Timmons
Morningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research? [view article]
Doesn't it defeat a good deal of the purpose in investing in index ETF's to pay for fundamental analysis of the makeup of the index? I thought (and I'm no expert by any means) that one of the great benefits of buying into index funds was that because the fund sought to mimic the composition and movements of an index or composite of indexes that it saved immensely on management costs and allocated risk and exposure across the width and breadth of the market. Why then would I pay for the very services that passively managed funds save money by cutting? ReplyMorningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research? [view article]
I only need one question answered: How well have Morningstar's crack equity analysts performed in the past determining the fair value of equities? Reply