Morningstar Advisor - June/July 2009 - 79

In the Loop New at Morningstar Morningstar Acquires Andex Associates to Morningstar’s product lineup will allow us to offer our combined client base a broader range of financial communications materials.” Major Changes to Principia User Experience Morningstar Research Inc., a Canadian subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. has acquired Andex Associates Inc., a privately held firm based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, that produces financial charts and communications materials for financial advisors. Andex Associates was founded in 1993 by Anthony DiMeo and Dexter Robinson. The company is best known for its Andex Charts, individual graphic charts detailing historical market returns, stock index growth, inflation rates, currency rates, and general economic conditions for the United States dating back to 1926, and for Canada dating back to 1950. The charts offer in-depth historical information to help investors understand the context and propensity of market downturns and recoveries. Andex serves most of the leading financial-services firms in Canada, including BMO Financial Group, CIBC, Great West Life, Investors Group, London Life, RBC Royal Bank, Scotiabank, and TD Canada Trust. “Morningstar and Andex offer iconic images that help financial professionals communicate important messages about long-term investing, market performance, risk, asset allocation, and the historical context of the financial markets,” said Mike Barad, vice president of financial communications for Morningstar. “Andex Charts are the best-selling financial charts and images in the Canadian market, and Morningstar has the best-selling financial charts in the U.S. market. Adding Andex Charts During the first quarter of 2009, Principia released several major developments that have dramatically enhanced the Principia user experience. These enhancements were made to improve the way advisors access, use, and pay for Principia. The changes include the incorporation of monthly payment options, electronic-delivery of information, and the introduction of a free Web-based training curriculum. The goals of these additional features were: r increase flexibility (monthly payments) To r improve delivery speeds (e-delivery), and To r make the product more effective and To accessible for all (training). To find out more about these improvements, call (866) 812-5192. Kaplan Receives Graham and Dodd Award weighting—better reflects the fair value of the index and its constituent stocks. Unlike traditional market-capitalization weighting schemes, fundamental weighting assigns a stock’s weight in the index using measures unrelated to the stock’s price, such as earnings or revenue. Kaplan demonstrates under what conditions fundamental weights are better or worse estimators of fair value than market-capitalization weights, and he offers two approaches to combining both weighting schemes. The complete paper can be accessed at www.cfapubs.org. “Paul has been instrumental in helping Morningstar develop its index methodologies, and we are thrilled that he has been recognized with this most prestigious honor for his contribution to the field,” said Don Phillips, a managing director for Morningstar. “Paul’s research elevates the debate between fundamental and traditional indexing and may impact new investment product development and benchmarking as well as how investors approach index investing.” Global Reports Database Business Acquired Paul Kaplan, Ph.D., CFA, vice president of quantitative research, has received the Graham and Dodd Award from the CFA Institute Financial Analysts Journal. The prestigious award was given for the research paper, “Why Fundamental Indexation Might—or Might Not—Work,” which was published in the January/February 2008 issue of FAJ (a version of this paper titled, “Let’s Not All Become Fundamental Indexers Just Yet” was printed in the Spring 2008 issue of Morningstar Advisor. This is the seventh Graham and Dodd Award or Graham and Dodd Scroll Award won by a Morningstar or Ibbotson Associates researcher. Awarded by the FAJ’s Advisory Council and Editorial Board, the award is given in recognition of excellence in research and financial writing. In the paper, Kaplan explores the debate over which weighting system for indexes—fundamental weighting versus market-capitalization Morningstar has acquired the global financial filings database business of Global Reports LLC, a leading provider of online financial and Corporate and Social Responsibility reports for publicly traded companies around the world. Financial terms were not disclosed. “One of our growth strategies is to create a premier global investment database, and our acquisition of the Global Reports business advances our goal of having the most comprehensive information for public companies,” said Liz Kirscher, president of data services for Morningstar. Morningstar plans to fully integrate Global Reports’ financial filings database into products such as Morningstar. com®; Morningstar® Advisor Workstation, Morningstar Direct, and 10-K Wizard. MorningstarAdvisor.com 79

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Morningstar Advisor - June/July 2009

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