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Thanks @Sven. A relief of sorts. After mysteriously receiving M* Premium free for about a year, they pulled the plug / cut me off on Friday. I coughed up $200 over the weekend for a 1-year (discounted) subscription. Would have cancelled within the 7-day grace period had it been available free at Fido. Good idea to use the local library. However, easy access to knowledge in the comfort of home is important to me.
BF said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best dividends”.
T. Rowe Price overhauled its investor benefits a couple of years ago. The newer Summit program provides "Complimentary Morningstar Premium membership" at the Select Services ($250K) level and above. The old program used to provide this perk at $100K; I don't know whether this has been grandfathered in.
M* has so crippled its search engine (how can one search for funds with more than 10% in EM now?) that there seems little left of benefit. Portfolio tracking can be done elsewhere (e.g. Fidelity), and as @Sven commented, reports are available at the library (which I read online). They're also available from Firstrade if you have an account login. (Years ago, Schwab provided them for free.)
All true @msf. I posted some of my frustrations at M* in the OT section yesterday. As of this morning, they still couldn’t pull up CCOR.
I find their fund analyses interesting (but largely robo-generated). In particular I appreciate their notes on manager experience, management turnover, etc. and how a particular fund happens to be “tilted” compared to its peers (ie: credit quality, duration, large cap, small cap, etc.) You need to “read through” a lot of it and cross-check with other sources or compare their analysis (with all its shortcomings) to your own knowledge. No panacea for sure.
Yahoo Finance (which is free) offers some excellence performance information. Probably underutilized by many.
As Sven mentioned, you may want to check if your local library provides online access to M* Investing Center. Fund analyst reports are accessible via Investing Center. The quant-generated reports are not very useful but reports written by human analysts can be very good (dependent on caliber of analyst). The following newsletters are also available gratis: Morningstar FundInvestor, Morningstar ETFInvestor, Morningstar StockInvestor, and Morningstar DividendInvestor.
As Sven mentioned, you may want to check if your local library provides online access to M* Investing Center. Fund analyst reports are accessible via Investing Center. The quant-generated reports are not very useful but reports written by human analysts can be very good (dependent on caliber of analyst). The following newsletters are also available gratis: Morningstar FundInvestor, Morningstar ETFInvestor, Morningstar StockInvestor, and Morningstar DividendInvestor.
I am able to access M* Library Edition from my laptop at home with my library card number and PIN.
Yes. M* is accessible through most US local libraries. I checked and they had no one asking for it but when I inquired, the Adult Ref Library Manager responded and turned it right away and they've been renewing it for the last 5+ years.
All M* current Investment Newsletters are accessible from a laptop @Home to download/review. I do not know if the newer M* Platform is accessible.
My old or new portfolios can now be created and tracked on the latest M*, as I have not visited their forums. Thanks. Majick
Yes, I was grandfathered into free M* thru TRP when the new threshold was raised from $100k to $250k. It still works, though my acct with TRP was closed and moved. But I'm still connected because my email address was used to connect a buddy's account with TRP to M*. That's what I'm thinking, anyhow. (I babysit that acct. for him.)
I too seem to be grandfathered as I no longer have an account with T. Rowe Price. However, I never had access to the analysts reports and more recently, I have another stripped down version. For example, I used to be to compare multiple funds, which I can no longer do because on my M* version with TRP, I do not have a chart tab. I am able to save and x-ray portfolios.
I can access M* Premium thru local library. I think one cannot set up a watch list or a portfolio in the public version. Most everything else looks comparable to subscribers' version.
I used to be to compare multiple funds, which I can no longer do …
I’ve done that before at Fidelity - and without logging in. Up to 3 or 4 funds at a time. A real eye opener. Very helpful. It’s a bit hard to uncover. ISTM you need to be researching a particular conventional mutual fund first. Hit “compare” and than I was able to throw some ETFs into the mix.
I can confirm what @hank mentioned above. I use the function to compare MF's to ETF's as he does. To be honest I don't use many MF's at all any more but I've held on to a couple of long term winners.
M* Investment Research Center was replaced by M* Investing Center in 2023. Portfolio X-Ray was retired (at least in Investing Center) after the platform upgrade. I thought Portfolio X-Ray was a great tool and was very disappointed.
Personally, I find the Fidelity website more useful than M* ever was. I can compare funds, analyze holdings, asset allocations, etc. I have found M* ratings and analyses to be poor predictors of future performance, giving users a false sense of security in picking funds. The Fidelity portfolio analysis tool is every bit as useful as M* X-Ray ever was. The only M* feature that I find useful is portfolio view - watch lists, which is good for tracking performance of funds over various periods of time. M* star ratings and fund recommendations are a joke. Over the years, I purchased many funds that were highly rated by M* and turned out to be bad investments. Likewise, many funds that have been very profitable for me get poor to mediocre ratings from M*. For example, M* tends to “damn with faint praise” many excellent Fidelity funds such as FCNTX and FBALX. They seem to bend over backwards to promote many T Rowe Price funds that are mediocre at best (eg, TRPBX).
Good: Fido Screener finds both mutual funds and ETFs. Bad: Fido Screener only finds funds supported at the Fido platform.
Good: Fido suggests similar funds to a given one and makes it easy to compare Bad: Selected funds are only funds offered NTF by Fidelity
M* used to have a feature called Similar Funds that found the most similar funds in the same category as the given fund. It provided three similarity scores - portfolio composition, performance, and a combination of those two. That's long gone, as are all fund tools on the old (not "Investor") site.
Typical of M* to leave up instructions for something they no longer support.
There is a at least one free tool to find similar/overlap in etf's at the dinky linky. I have often linked to it, but maybe it will be new to someone reading this thread.
@Observant1, free Instant X-Ray is gone. But X-Ray still exists within the old M* Portfolio (Premium) and the new M* Investor (subscription).
Some of the reported problems may be just due to the old M* Portfolio Premium subscription expiring and new subscription for M* Investors not started.
Thanks for the info, Yogi. Someone from M* informed me that X-Ray would be retired after the library platform upgrade. Wasn't sure if X-Ray was completely retired or if it was just removed from M* Investing Center. Sounds like it was the latter.
Paying $200 for a (introductory) year of M* Premium Investor. That’s $16.66 a month. You can’t buy a bottle of drinkable scotch for that. I saw a 6-pack of Sam Adam’s (Boston Lager) priced at $12.50 (+ bottle deposit) where I shop the other day. We are all suffering from “sticker shock.” Everything seems more expensive, especially if you’ve been retired a long time. I love reading financial stuff. Spend hours a week reading up on funds on M* alone. Usually it’s just to get an idea how different approaches are faring, as my core holdings hardly ever change.
M* used to have a feature called Similar Funds that found the most similar funds in the same category as the given fund. It provided three similarity scores - portfolio composition, performance, and a combination of those two. That's long gone, as are all fund tools on the old (not "Investor") site.
MStar now has the 'Comparables' function. Not as good as the old 'Similar Funds' - and no scores - but something... As compared to the new search which, as you (very kindly) described, has "little left of benefit".
Beginning to think subscribing for a year was a mistake. M* has been bombarding my email with solicitations for costly “upgrades” beyond the Investor service I paid for. Not only that, but Seeking Alpha, which I have never used has begun sending unwanted solicitations to my inbox. (I’m routing them to junk.) . M* must be selling my information to other services.
Than there’s the email inquiry I sent their customer support team asking them to look into the fact that an etf, CCOR, cannot be accessed on M*. Not only did they email the non-relevant answer pasted below, but they left a rambling phone message in badly broken English (indecipherable really) re the inquiry on my residential phone answering machine when I was away. I have already blocked that number so they will hopefully stop phoning!
”We have reviewed your query. However, please note that on the Morningstar Investor website, we cover only US-domiciled securities. Upon checking the details, we found that the mentioned security Canaccord Genuity Group Inc is Canada-domiciled, which is why it is not available on the Investor website”
I have not done anything 'Morningstar' in many years. Guess what, I found other ways to get what I wanted. I don't miss it in the least. Most of my research and inquires are through Schwab, though I must say their portfolio info is lacking. I moved my HSA to Fidelity a year ago, so I have access to that, but I haven't used it much.
@hank, at the bottom of M* emails, there are clicks to Unsubscribe and Update email preferences (it will show all current subscriptions and you can cancel one or all). I looked for ways to get to these tabs from M* Homepage or Account info, but couldn't find them. It should certainly be easier to find these.
Thanks Yogi. I sent-off the email inquiry re CCOR ([email protected]) yesterday more or less as a courtesy to them, thinking they’d want to fix whatever glitch is keeping it from pulling up. They have had it on site in the past. Re CCOR … why is it only on the Canadian site? My info says the company is in Wisconsin.
I’ve gone into accounts and deleted any unwanted email promotions. I’ve sent an email asking them not to phone my home re routine matters but to correspond via email. And I’ve requested they not provide my personal information to other commercial concerns.
Don’t mind the subscription cost or even the inexplicable omission of CCOR from the U.S. site. But their customer interface appears in need of a drastic upgrade. (Does anyone welcome a rambling message about a security they own left on their answering machine when they’re not home?) Sounds like they’re operating in large measure from some offshore location. (China maybe?) Is M* publicly traded? Might short it!
This doesn't help explain why M*'s ticker search can't pull up the ETF, but CCOR (Core Alternative ETF) is available on this investor.morningstar.com webpage: https://investor.morningstar.com/quotes/0P00019XXB (login required)
That page seems to have been removed from the www.morningstar.com site. The last capture by the Wayback Machine was on Dec 5. At that time, it was a 2* fund; the live page above says it is now a 1* fund.
In the meantime, I checked that ETF CCOR is recognized by Yahoo Finance, StockCharts, MFO Premium, M* Investor (strangely, the name Core Alternative ETF is recognized, but not the ticker CCOR). M* Home recognizes the name Core Alternative ETF, but there is no information; ticker CCOR isn't recognized.
In the meantime, I checked that ETF CCOR is recognized by Yahoo Finance, StockCharts, MFO Premium, M* Investor (strangely, the name Core Alternative ETF is recognized, but not the ticker CCOR). M* Home recognizes the name Core Alternative ETF, but there is no information; ticker CCOR isn't recognized.
Comes up ok on SeekingAlpha. CCOR Core Alternative ETF. $26.12
Comments
Please check your local library if they subscribe to their online service.
BF said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best dividends”.
https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/about/client-benefits/index.html
(Scroll about half way down for a table of benefits vs. investment amounts)
M* has so crippled its search engine (how can one search for funds with more than 10% in EM now?) that there seems little left of benefit. Portfolio tracking can be done elsewhere (e.g. Fidelity), and as @Sven commented, reports are available at the library (which I read online). They're also available from Firstrade if you have an account login. (Years ago, Schwab provided them for free.)
I find their fund analyses interesting (but largely robo-generated). In particular I appreciate their notes on manager experience, management turnover, etc. and how a particular fund happens to be “tilted” compared to its peers (ie: credit quality, duration, large cap, small cap, etc.) You need to “read through” a lot of it and cross-check with other sources or compare their analysis (with all its shortcomings) to your own knowledge. No panacea for sure.
Yahoo Finance (which is free) offers some excellence performance information. Probably underutilized by many.
Fund analyst reports are accessible via Investing Center.
The quant-generated reports are not very useful but reports written by human analysts can be very good (dependent on caliber of analyst). The following newsletters are also available gratis:
Morningstar FundInvestor, Morningstar ETFInvestor, Morningstar StockInvestor, and Morningstar DividendInvestor.
I checked and they had no one asking for it but when I inquired, the Adult Ref Library Manager responded and turned it right away and they've been renewing it for the last 5+ years.
All M* current Investment Newsletters are accessible from a laptop @Home to download/review.
I do not know if the newer M* Platform is accessible.
My old or new portfolios can now be created and tracked on the latest M*,
as I have not visited their forums.
Thanks.
Majick
Portfolio X-Ray was retired (at least in Investing Center) after the platform upgrade.
I thought Portfolio X-Ray was a great tool and was very disappointed.
Some of the reported problems may be just due to the old M* Portfolio Premium subscription expiring and new subscription for M* Investors not started.
Bad: Fido Screener only finds funds supported at the Fido platform.
As I started to say … I don’t have strong reservations about paying for content. Albeit, M* is fraught with apparently self-inflicted shortcomings.
Bad: Selected funds are only funds offered NTF by Fidelity
M* used to have a feature called Similar Funds that found the most similar funds in the same category as the given fund. It provided three similarity scores - portfolio composition, performance, and a combination of those two. That's long gone, as are all fund tools on the old (not "Investor") site.
Here's a description of how that tool worked:
https://admainnew.morningstar.com/directhelp/General/Find_Similar_Funds.htm
There is a at least one free tool to find similar/overlap in etf's at the dinky linky. I have often linked to it, but maybe it will be new to someone reading this thread.
Someone from M* informed me that X-Ray would be retired after the library platform upgrade.
Wasn't sure if X-Ray was completely retired or if it was just removed from M* Investing Center.
Sounds like it was the latter.
PremiumInvestor. That’s $16.66 a month. You can’t buy a bottle of drinkable scotch for that. I saw a 6-pack of Sam Adam’s (Boston Lager) priced at $12.50 (+ bottle deposit) where I shop the other day. We are all suffering from “sticker shock.” Everything seems more expensive, especially if you’ve been retired a long time. I love reading financial stuff. Spend hours a week reading up on funds on M* alone. Usually it’s just to get an idea how different approaches are faring, as my core holdings hardly ever change.Than there’s the email inquiry I sent their customer support team asking them to look into the fact that an etf, CCOR, cannot be accessed on M*. Not only did they email the non-relevant answer pasted below, but they left a rambling phone message in badly broken English (indecipherable really) re the inquiry on my residential phone answering machine when I was away. I have already blocked that number so they will hopefully stop phoning!
”We have reviewed your query. However, please note that on the Morningstar Investor website, we cover only US-domiciled securities. Upon checking the details, we found that the mentioned security Canaccord Genuity Group Inc is Canada-domiciled, which is why it is not available on the Investor website”
My advice - Avoid these guys.
M* does have foreign websites and has one for Canada - CCOR pulls up there. Forget M* customer service - you get better info on various discussion forums (MFO, Morningstar, Big Bang).
https://www.morningstar.ca/ca/
https://www.morningstar.ca/ca/report/stocks/performance.aspx?t=0P0000KURO&lang=en-CA
Thanks Yogi. I sent-off the email inquiry re CCOR ([email protected]) yesterday more or less as a courtesy to them, thinking they’d want to fix whatever glitch is keeping it from pulling up. They have had it on site in the past. Re CCOR … why is it only on the Canadian site? My info says the company is in Wisconsin.
I’ve gone into accounts and deleted any unwanted email promotions. I’ve sent an email asking them not to phone my home re routine matters but to correspond via email. And I’ve requested they not provide my personal information to other commercial concerns.
Don’t mind the subscription cost or even the inexplicable omission of CCOR from the U.S. site. But their customer interface appears in need of a drastic upgrade. (Does anyone welcome a rambling message about a security they own left on their answering machine when they’re not home?) Sounds like they’re operating in large measure from some offshore location. (China maybe?) Is M* publicly traded? Might short it!
https://investor.morningstar.com/quotes/0P00019XXB (login required)
That page seems to have been removed from the www.morningstar.com site. The last capture by the Wayback Machine was on Dec 5. At that time, it was a 2* fund; the live page above says it is now a 1* fund.
Here's the captured page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20231205113350/https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/ccor/quote