Morningstar's October Winners & Losers

Morningstar added ratings for four more SMAs.

In October, Morningstar added analyst ratings for another four separately managed accounts, as well as for four U.S. funds. It also published rating activity for 159 U.S. open-end mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and five SMAs.

Analysts upgraded ratings for six funds, downgraded ratings for 12 funds and one SMA, affirmed ratings for 136 funds and four SMAs and placed one fund’s rating under review.

“Diamond Hill Mid Cap earned an inaugural Morningstar Analyst Rating of Gold for its exceptional team and disciplined framework,” Laura Pavlenko Lutton, Morningstar’s director of manager research for North America, said in a statement.

Lutton added, “Chris Welch and two additional portfolio managers work with the firm’s two dozen analysts who perform rigorous, bottom-up research. They look for companies trading below their intrinsic values that offer promise over a five-year time horizon. Adding to this strong team and approach is a relatively cheap fee versus its mid-cap value Morningstar Category peers.”

As of Oct. 31, 160 unique U.S. funds were rated Gold; 346 funds were rated Silver, 590 Bronze, 683 Neutral and 18 Negative. Currently, Morningstar Medalists account for about 5% of unique mutual funds available for sale in the U.S. and 69% of assets under management.

Morningstar’s manager research analysts rate approximately $11.8 trillion of U.S. investor assets, or approximately 61% of total investor assets in the U.S.

The following Morningstar Analyst Rating changes occurred in October 2018:

Upgrades

  1. iShares Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF (Bronze to Silver)
  2. Fidelity Conservative Income Bond (Bronze to Silver)
  3. JPMorgan Core Plus Bond (Neutral to Bronze)
  4. PIMCO RAE PLUS (Neutral to Bronze)
  5. PIMCO StocksPLUS (Bronze to Silver)
  6. BlackRock High Yield Municipal (Bronze to Silver)

Downgrades

  1. AMG Managers Fairpointe Mid Cap (Silver to Neutral)
  2. Montag & Caldwell Equity (SMA) (Bronze to Neutral)
  3. LKCM Small Cap Equity (Bronze to Neutral)
  4. Lord Abbett Value Opportunities (Bronze to Neutral)
  5. MFS Diversified Income (Bronze to Neutral)
  6. Nuveen NWQ Small-Cap Value (Bronze to Neutral)
  7. Oberweis International Opportunities (Bronze to Neutral)
  8. Oberweis International Opportunities Institutional (Bronze to Neutral)
  9. Oppenheimer International Small-Mid Company (Bronze to Neutral)
  10. RBC Microcap Value (Neutral to Negative)
  11. Royce Premier (Bronze to Neutral)
  12. T. Rowe Price New Income (Bronze to Neutral)
  13. Fidelity High Income (Under Review to Bronze)

New Ratings

  1. Champlain Small Cap (SMA) (None to Gold)
  2. Diamond Hill Mid Cap Equity (SMA) (None to Gold)
  3. Diamond Hill Mid Cap (None to Gold)
  4. Loomis Sayles High Income Opportunities (None to Gold)
  5. Vaughan Nelson Value Opportunity (SMA) (None to Neutral)
  6. Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators (None to Neutral)
  7. NWQ Small Cap Value Equity (SMA) (None to Neutral)
  8. Natixis Vaughan Nelson Value Opportunities (None to Neutral)

Under Review

Voya Global Equity Dividend (Neutral to Under Review)

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