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Home » Investing » Tools » Morningstar Review 2023: Should You Upgrade To Investor?

Morningstar Review 2023: Should You Upgrade To Investor?

Updated: March 9, 2023 By Robert Farrington

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Morningstar Review

Analyzing stocks can be a time-consuming process. But for those who do it, there’s generally a passion associated with the process. While it would be great to have a team of analysts on your side to spread the workload around, that simply isn’t practical for the individual investor.

Morningstar has the next best thing to a team of analysts. Its premium service, which recently rebranded and is now called Morningstar Investor, has already done much of the necessary analysis for stocks, ETFs, and funds. You just need to go through the analysis and decide if an investment has potential or not. In this article, we'll go through what Morningstar has to offer.

You might also want to dive into our list of the best investing and stock newsletters.

Right now, you can start your 7-day free trial and save $50 on an annual Investor subscription with code COLLEGEINVESTOR.


Morningstar

Quick Summary

  • Limited free version
  • Excellent fundamental analysis
  • X-Ray can analyze assets within your portfolio
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Morningstar Details

Product Name

Morningstar Investor

Services

Stock, ETF, Mutual Fund, and Portfolio Analysis

Memberships

Basic (Free) and Premium

 Fees

Monthly: $34.95

Annual: $249 $199

Premium Free Trial

7 Days (and then $50 off)

Promotions

Students can receive a full year for only $25 (a 90% discount).

Save $50 on an annual Investor subscription with code COLLEGEINVESTOR.

Table of Contents
Who Is Morningstar?
What Do They Offer?
Pricing And Plans
How Does Morningstar Compare?
Is It Worth It?
Morningstar Features

Who Is Morningstar?

Morningstar is an investment rating platform for stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds. It's based in Chicago, IL, and was founded in 1984. 

Over the past 35+ years, it has developed a swath of independent research, ratings, and tools. Today, Morningstar is one of the most respected stock market analysis firms in the U.S. and is trusted by individuals and professional investors alike. 

Morningstar's workforce of more than 5,000 employees conduct research all over the world (in 27 countries) on over 620,000 investments. It also has about $215 billion in assets under management through its investment subsidiaries.

What Do They Offer?

Morningstar provides ratings and analysis on stocks and funds. Its ratings are widely quoted on other websites and sometimes in the financial media. The site is oriented towards fundamental investors.

Fundamental investing is a type of analysis that looks at a company’s financials, management, industry, and growth prospects. This is in contrast to technical analysis, which analyzes stocks using charts. If you use purely technical analysis, Morningstar doesn’t really have anything to offer.

Morningstar will save any fundamental investor a lot of time by providing high-quality analysis. Once you type in the symbol of a stock, ETF, or mutual fund, you'll see information at a glance that allows you to assess the asset quickly.

From there, you can decide to move onto the next asset or dig deeper through Morningstar's commentary and other analysis features. Some of those other features include:

  • Compare financials to competitors
  • Current market price compared to fair value
  • Percentage that price is over/undervalued
  • Economic Moat
  • Stewardship

Portfolio Analysis

Morningstar’s portfolio analysis tool is called X-Ray. It’s named X-Ray because it can look into your portfolio to determine if you have overexposure to some investments through duplicate holdings.

For example, you might hold 10% Apple (AAPL) as a stock and not realize that you also have a fund that holds a large portion of AAPL. That means you're actually holding more than 10% in Apple.

X-Ray will show the weighting for each position, which allows you to see if positions are properly weighted. You’ll also see the sectors your positions are in, geographic locations, interest rate sensitivity, valuation (growth vs. value scale), and more.

X-ray does not offer insight into diversification, at least not from a modern portfolio theory perspective. In other words, it doesn’t provide any correlation information between investments in the portfolio.

Screener

A screener lets you put in certain characteristics of an asset and find those that match. The Morningstar screener is specific to the metrics provided by morningstar. Meaning, you can’t filter on broad metrics. You can filter on performance, analyst-grade ratings, or financials.

Related: 5 Tools Every Investor Should Use

Memberships

Morningstar offers a free (called Basic) and paid (called Premium) membership levels to its service. The free subscription can give you a taste of what Morningstar has to offer. (There's also a student discount for only $25—more on that below.)

However, you may quickly find that Basic is too limiting to perform meaningful analysis. The only thing in the free version that you’ll have full access to is editorial articles. Everything else is restricted in some way.

Morningstar Premium Review

Pricing And Plans

There are fees only if you go with the Investor membership. However, there is a 7-day trial. After that, you can enjoy $50 off, making the annual rate $199. Morningstar also added a new student subscription. Students can receive an entire year of Morningstar for only $25—that's 90% off!

Check out their various plan options in the table below.


Monthly

Annual

Student

Standard Price

$34.95

$249

$249

Promotion

N/A

$50 off

90% off

Discounted Price

N/A

$199

$25 a year

START HERE
START HERE
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The monthly plan is by far the most expensive option. In just one year, you'd spend $419.40 in membership fees. On the flip side, if you sign up for the annual plan, you'd receive $50 after the 7-day trial and pay $199 for the year. Try Morningstar Investor free for 7 days >>>

Morningstar Investor for Students

Students with a valid .edu email address can get Morningstar Investor for 90% off for the first year - this means that the normal $249 price tag will drop to just $25.

Sign up for Morningstar Investor for Students here >>

For everyone else, save $50 on an annual Investor subscription with code COLLEGEINVESTOR. Get started here >>

How Does Morningstar Compare?

Morningstar is very hands-on and requires that you come to a conclusion on any potential investments. If you want a similar level of analysis and someone to provide the conclusion for you, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor may be a better choice. 

For half the price (intro price of $99 per year), you can offload the analysis onto someone else. The service also comes with a 30-day trial. Check out the Motley Fool here >>>

Motley Fool Stock Advisor doesn’t have all of the various analysis levers that you can pull and tweak to go in-depth. Instead, they send you monthly stock picks via lengthy reports. In other words, it’s a one-and-done type of service.

You get the report and decide if you want to invest in the pick. The reports go deep, and there’s plenty to read on each pick.

Header
Morningstar Comparison
Morningstar Comparison: Motley Fool

Rating

Annual Membership Fee

$249/yr  $199/yr

$99/first year

Stock Screening

Yes

Yes

Fund Screening

Yes

No

Research Tools

Yes

Yes

Promotions

7-Day Free Trial

$50 Off

30-Day Free Trial

$100 Off

Cell
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READ THE REVIEW

Is It Worth It?

Morningstar's tools aren't really meant to provide stock picks for day trading or swing trading. Rather it's for long-term investors and, specifically, those interested in fundamental analysis. 

Morningstar is also focused on stocks, ETFs, and funds. If you're looking to invest other instruments such as forex, futures, or options, Morningstar won't provide any benefit.

To really determine if Morningstar is for you, it's best to try out the Investor service's free 7-day trial. And by signing up for your free trial with our site's link, you'll qualify for $50 off. Start your 7-day Morningstar Investor free trial here.

Also, don't forget about the steep student discount. You can get an entire year for only $25.

Morningstar Features

Memberships

Basic (Free)

Investor

Student Discount

Premium Fees

  • Monthly: $34.95
  • Annual: $249 $199
  • Student subscription: $25

Premium Free Trial

7 days

Stock Analysis

Yes

Mutual Fund Analysis

Yes

ETF Analysis

Yes

Portfolio Analysis

Yes

Forex Analysis

No

Options Advice

No

Fee Analysis

Yes

ESG Ratings

Yes

Customer Service Number

1-866-215-2503

Customer Service Hours

Mon - Fri, 9:00 AM- 5:00 PM (CT)

Customer Service Email

OfficeQuestions@morningstar.com

Mobile App Availability

iOS and Android

Promotions

  • Up to $50 off Morningstar Investor
  • Students receive annual subscription for $25
Morningstar Review
  • Pricing and Fees
  • Ease of Use
  • Tools and Features
  • Products and Services
  • Customer Service
Overall
3.9

Summary

Morningstar helps long-term investors uncover value in stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds through its exclusive research, ratings, and tools.

Pros

  • In-depth research of stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds
  • X-Ray portfolio analysis
  • User-friendly interface
  • 7-day free trial

Cons

  • Minimal access to rating and tools for Basic members
  • Monthly Investor membership costs $249 per year (but after the 7-day trial, you can receive $50 off)
  • Try Morningstar
Robert Farrington
Robert Farrington

Robert Farrington is America’s Millennial Money Expert® and America’s Student Loan Debt Expert™, and the founder of The College Investor, a personal finance site dedicated to helping millennials escape student loan debt to start investing and building wealth for the future. You can learn more about him on the About Page, or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.

He regularly writes about investing, student loan debt, and general personal finance topics geared towards anyone wanting to earn more, get out of debt, and start building wealth for the future.

He has been quoted in major publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Fox, ABC, NBC, and more. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes.

Editor: Clint Proctor Reviewed by: Claire Tak

Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, or other advertiser and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
Comment Policy: We invite readers to respond with questions or comments. Comments may be held for moderation and are subject to approval. Comments are solely the opinions of their authors'. The responses in the comments below are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any company. It is not anyone's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
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