Morningstar Magazine - December 2017/January 2018 - 23

Number of Snow Days

Linear (Number of Snow Days)

Dispatches

Rolling 10-Year Average

Days
225

Greatest Number of Snow Days on Record
200

Global Briefs

175

TRENDS

150

Mutual Funds Open Up

improvement for mutual fund investors through
The Morningstar Global Fund Investor Experience
125
regulation and better practices. The U.S. remains
study, first published in 2009, has promoted
a dialogue about global best practices for mutual
the leader for overall treatment of investors.
funds from the perspective of fund investors.
100
This biennial report evaluates 25 countriesSecond
aroundFewest When
it comes
to Days
the disclosure component,
Number
of Snow
India is now on par with the U.S.: They are the 75
only
the world in four categories: regulation
and taxation; disclosure;
expenses;
of remuneration
1900
1920 fees and 1940
1960 markets requiring
1980 disclosure2000
'16
and sales. The 2017 study found continued
practice for fund managers. India is also the only

country that requires portfolio holdings to be
released monthly. Sixty percent of the countries
require semiannual disclosure, and nearly all
the others require quarterly disclosure. (Australia
has no disclosure requirements, and France
requires only annual reporting.) In practice,
though, an increasing number of funds report to
Morningstar more often than regulations require.

Monthly Provision of Portfolios Is Becoming the Standard

Monthly

Quarterly

Semiannually

Other

Not Received
100%
80
60

In 10 of the countries in the survey,
more than two thirds of mutual funds
report holdings to Morningstar monthly.

40
20

Thailand

Taiwan

China

Japan

Singapore

Belgium

South Africa

Hong Kong

Australia

Italy

France

United States

New Zealand

Germany

Switzerland

Netherlands

Spain

Sweden

United Kingdom

Korea

Denmark

Canada

Norway

Finland

India

Source: Morningstar.
Notes: In Australia, portfolios are not displayed in full but used mainly for fund and portfolio analytics.

Uncertainty for
Healthcare Exchanges
AMERICAS

United States
In October, President Donald Trump signed
two executive orders that will materially
change the landscape of the healthcare market.
The first allows individuals and small

businesses to buy health insurance plans that
offer benefits below current Affordable Care
Act mandates and allows these entities to form
group purchasing organizations. The second
immediately halts all cost-sharing subsidies for
insurers that provide plans on the public
exchanges. These subsidies were used by insurers
to offer lower copayments and coinsurance to
their members. These executive orders have
weakened key pillars of the public exchanges and
have built material uncertainty into the public
exchange market.

From our initial analysis, we believe these actions
have offsetting positives and negatives for the
managed-care and service-provider companies we
cover. However, we caution investors that the
ultimate business ramifications and actual
population affected by these executive orders are
not as impactful as they may initially seem.
Of the 320 million individuals in the United
States, approximately 20 million receive insurance
through the public exchanges. Additionally,
the major managed-care companies, or MCOs,

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Morningstar Magazine - December 2017/January 2018