Morningstar announced this week that it is bolstering its model portfolio research as interest in the products continues to grow.
The firm has just published its annual report on the model portfolio landscape, which says the number of options for investors is growing rapidly. Demand is being driven by the greater flexibility and customization that models offer, particularly when it comes to tax management.
Besides publishing the paper, Morningstar said it is doubling the qualitative and forward-looking Analyst Rating coverage of model portfolios by the end of 2021. Morningstar's manager research team currently covers 43 model portfolio series to provide ratings on more than 250 models, spanning 24 asset managers.
Model portfolio analyst ratings are available on Morningstar Direct, the company's flagship investment research platform for asset and wealth managers, as well as in Morningstar Advisor Workstation and Morningstar Office.
In addition, the company will roll out the Morningstar Rating — or star rating — to model portfolios in the fourth quarter.
The star rating for model portfolios will follow the same core methodology that is used to assign ratings to managed investments such as mutual funds and separate accounts. Under this methodology, Morningstar will assign ratings to model portfolios based on their past risk-adjusted returns versus their category peers.
Morningstar said that given that model portfolios are hypothetical, it is adapting the core star rating methodology to ensure that the star rating for model portfolios upholds a high standard of reliability. Specifically, it will adapt the star rating methodology in these ways:
- Strictly limiting the use of back-tested return data in the risk-adjusted return calculation.
- Requiring model providers to submit portfolio holdings data on a quarterly basis.
- Requiring model providers to comply with Global Investment Performance Standards or manage at least $10 billion in regulated investment vehicles such as mutual funds.
As part of its transparency push, Morningstar will surface new data points that provide foundational information on model portfolios across its product suite. This will include assets under advisement, asset allocation targets and ranges, and rebalancing frequency.
Finally, the company will launch a new "Model Exchange" functionality to Morningstar Advisor Workstation subscribers, which will enable them to research, compare, apply and subscribe to some 2,100 models.
All models will be assigned the new Morningstar Portfolio Risk Score, which measures a portfolio's level of risk. Enterprise clients of Advisor Workstation can also manage their own proprietary models alongside any third-party models, simplifying the planning-to-action process for their advisors.
"Morningstar is doing what it did for mutual funds and exchange-traded funds: helping investors and advisors make sense of a plethora of new investment options with the tools and insights to assess whether that investment option is right for them or their clients," Michael Herbst, director of models and institutional investments for Morningstar, said in a statement.
Herbst said that as investors demand more personalization, Morningstar is putting independent research and data in their hands and equipping financial professionals with the means to advise and empower their clients.
