Morningstar for Investors

Morningstar (M) packs a lot of customizable data for summary viewing. My main portfolio table has about 10 Headings with key data on each of my holdings. The main headings are Dividend Yield, Fair Value (FV) and the % of Fair Value at the current price. I can quickly look at this table and see what stocks are near FV which suggests divestment. One caution is that if you look at their Fair Values vs actual price for 10 or more years (which is one of many choices M offers) they often correlate on a lag basis. So they seem to be “late to the party” when a stock declines significantly, and then slow on the uptake if it gains value back. That’s not all bad as they want to be fairly certain before making a change in FV, which is a good thing. Overall, there is much more to like about M than not. Their Bull and Bear rationale for each stock is a notable plus as it shows the breadth of their overall analysis of each stock they rate. Good luck with your Investing!

Morningstar is one of the most useful financial apps ever! Once you enter the market symbol of all of your investments and the price at purchase (including entering the purchase price again each time you buy the same stock you already own), you’re done. This app keeps track of all of the markets’ minute-by-minute fluctuations and by simply pulling down on the screen and releasing it, updates the current market values. You can add any investment you own as long as it has a symbol associated with any of the world’s markets. I use it many times a day just to “check in” to see what’s happening in the broad financial markets as well as my own investments. You’ll love it 😍 ‼️

I have a premium account, and while a new subscriber, I use Morningstar data extensively. The portfolio tracking feature is nice on the iPhone, and I especially like that I can also follow the same portfolio on my iPad (which you can't do with Apple's default Stocks app, because it doesn't exist for the iPad). Sometime the portfolio view acts a little buggy. Sometimes it won't let me scroll up the page, initiating a page refresh (even if it just refreshed) rather than scrolling. After the refresh it starts working okay for a little bit. It's annoying, but it's manageable. However, I really wish the iPhone app had all the financial data (10 yr history, key ratios, etc) that the website does. The iPad app comes closer, but really, I just end up using the website on both devices when I need full access to the financial data.

2019 Nov: I was asked if I liked the changes. I hadn’t noticed any. No longer freezes as in 2015. Can’t compare funds and still no portfolio analysis. I don’t need a diagram. Otherwise very useful. Jan 2015 and still freezes often. Delete & reinstall again Dec 2014. Freezes often. it does load faster but the information in the watchlists that I have created is not there. MS said they standardized the information so that it would load quicker. I would rather have the information. Not sure why we can't have both though. Add portfolio analysis. MS iPad has it. I can get it on the website of my iPhone for Vanguard and for MorningStar. I contacted support without any meaningful response.

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Sadly, Morningstar has SIGNIFICANTLY decreased the content of their Premier application (not to be confused:This is the name of the product—it is certainly not a “premier” product. ) This is not unprecedented at Morningstar! In 30 years of dealing with them, I have yet to see an improvement without a significant price increase AND if a price remains stable, you will find there is less and less information available. Morningstar was once a resource for professionals. As the internet improved, they attempted to capture more income by creating products that were for the “independent” investor. In the last couple of years, they have reduced the abilities of Premier. To recover those abilities, individuals would have to step up to professional products. Those products are massive overkill for the individual investor as they are designed for planning for, and following portfolios, of client bases. Interestingly, Premier has no real expense to Morningstar—it is simply a distillation of information they must maintain for their professional products. Everyone is, it seems, paying Morningstar (Broker/Dealers, RIA’s, IARs, individual brokers, ADVERTISERS........, and individual investors). At present, they have very little competition.