Morningstar Investor 4+

Pretty good but could (hopefully will) be better

I’ve had this App for about 2 months now and have enjoyed it. I have the yearly premium membership and have found the content more useful than other sources. I really like the longer past horizon on financials that let me see performance pre Covid. If they build in much of the functionality that’s included in the normal web version it will be better. In particular the stock screening capability. Additionally I like the news articles which tend to be more varied and focused on financials versus apps like Yahoo Finance and Apple that inject left leaning politics. These articles tend to just focus on financials and the facts and any political discussion is in relation to financial impact and not just the authors personal views. I would recommend the premium version and also this App. Morningstar please make it even better.

Excellent Investment App

Morningstar (M) packs a lot of customizable data for summary viewing. My main portfolio table has about 10 Headings with key data on each of my holdings. The main headings are Dividend Yield, Fair Value (FV) and the % of Fair Value at the current price. I can quickly look at this table and see what stocks are near FV which suggests divestment.

One caution is that if you look at their Fair Values vs actual price for 10 or more years (which is one of many choices M offers) they often correlate on a lag basis. So they seem to be “late to the party” when a stock declines significantly, and then slow on the uptake if it gains value back. That’s not all bad as they want to be fairly certain before making a change in FV, which is a good thing.

Overall, there is much more to like about M than not. Their Bull and Bear rationale for each stock is a notable plus as it shows the breadth of their overall analysis of each stock they rate. Good luck with your Investing!

Developer Response ,

Hello. Thanks for writing to us, and appreciate the feedback!

Getting Better.

April 2022: I love MorningStar. The iPhone app, not so much. 3 Stars is generous. Supposedly there’s a beta version coming. The beta version apparently can look at your actual portfolio, so that it can be better analyzed. I’m still waiting. From what I’ve seen of Beta, this will be five stars. We will see.
2019 Nov: I was asked if I liked the changes. I hadn’t noticed any. No longer freezes as in 2015. Can’t compare funds and still no portfolio analysis. I don’t need a diagram. Otherwise very useful. Jan 2015 and still freezes often. Delete & reinstall again Dec 2014. Freezes often. it does load faster but the information in the watchlists that I have created is not there. MS said they standardized the information so that it would load quicker. I would rather have the information. Not sure why we can't have both though. Add portfolio analysis. MS iPad has it. I can get it on the website of my iPhone for Vanguard and for MorningStar. I contacted support without any meaningful response.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for your feedback! We've made a lot of changes to the iPhone app over the past few years to make the app faster and important data easier to find. We also have an iPad app available now. Please take a look and let us know what you think!