Jan Rogozinski

Morningstar's 'Vastly Superior' ETF Research?

For years, I was fooled by Morningstar. I didn't buy oil at $50 a barrel because Mstar "analysts" said it was grossly overpriced and would soon fall back to a more normal level of $15 a barrel.

over all, , there is something very wrong with their entire method of viewing risk. One example. There's a fund called Permanent Portfolio, which has never had a down or negative year since about 1980. And which over time has had (unlike savings accounts or CDs) positive returns much higher than than the inflation rate. . Nevertheless, they rate it as "very risky." That's just nuts. The reality is that the fund is safer than a CD or a US treasury bond. So how could it be risky.

I finally have decided that they confuse short term volatility with long term risk. So if a stock or fund fluctuates in value as it's return is rising, they think it is risky-- even when the overall trend always is higher, year after year. Meanwhile, they think a stock or fund is without risk if it goes along rising .00000000010% a year over time but without it's price fluctauating. in teh short term..

My advice. Use their abundance of data. But totally ignore their so-called analyses.