Morningstar, Inc. today announced it has entered into agreements with five investment banks to provide their brokerage clients with independent stock research under terms of the Global Research Settlement reached last year with federal and state regulators.
Investors now have access to Morningstar research through Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Piper Jaffray, and Citigroup's Smith Barney unit. Morningstar Analyst Reports and Ratings will be available for stocks that appear on each bank's covered-companies list. Morningstar was chosen after an extensive interview process conducted by the independent consultants who were responsible for selecting each research provider.
Morningstar stock-research highlights:
- Full Analyst Reports and Morningstar Ratings for 1,430 stocks
- Detailed one-page data reports with up to 10 years of financial history
- Coverage of 125 industries
- 70 stock analysts
The Morningstar Rating(TM) for stocks system identifies stocks trading at discounts or premiums to their intrinsic worth - or fair values. Five-star stocks are trading at the most attractive prices relative to their fair values, and 1-star stocks are trading at premiums to their fair values. There are three key components to the Morningstar Rating for stocks: Morningstar's estimate of the stock's fair value, Morningstar's assessment of the firm's business risk, and the stock's current market price. Morningstar's fair value estimates are based on its analysts' assessments of each company's competitive advantages, projections of the company's future cash flows, and an estimate of the appropriate discount rate to apply to those cash flows.