Morningstar Runs the Numbers

Inspired by Harper's Index (with a tip of the hat to FiveThirtyEight's Significant Digits blog), Morningstar Runs the Numbers uses a numbers-based approach to highlight recent Morningstar research, along with some outside news stories.

5 With the return of equity market volatility, many retirees and those about to enter retirement are wondering what to do. "It can be really scary for people who are either getting close to retirement or actively drawing upon their portfolios when the market falls off as it has recently," said director of personal finance Christine Benz. She shares five to-dos for retirees and those on the brink of retirement.

$24 Analyst Ali Mogharabi plans to raise Twitter's fair value estimate to $24 from $17 after the social network beat top- and bottom-line expectations and reported its first profitable quarter. While the firm did not see much growth in monthly active users, it appears that user engagement continues to increase as daily active users grew at a double-digit rate over the prior year, Mogharabi said. Higher than expected revenue, along with some effective cost control by management, helped the firm post a profitable quarter. Shares of the no-moat and very high uncertainty name are now trading in 3-star territory.

25 Investors continue to dump higher-priced funds in favor of lower-priced fare--not only in U.S. stock categories, but in foreign-stock and bond categories, too. That's one takeaway from the results of our survey of individual funds that investors sold last year. See the full list of 25 funds with the biggest outflows in 2017.

Flat Morningstar Advisor put Monday's sell-off in context on Twitter:

And speaking of recent market volatility, check out our Guide to the Market Sell-Off, which compiles all our sell-off coverage including a Premium Member-only look at what equity buying opportunities have opened up, as well as interviews with experts including Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders and Vanguard's Joe Brennan.

1990s Emojis may seem like a recent fad, but believe it or not, they've been around in one form or another since the 1990s, when emoticons allowed chatroom conversationalists to convey emotions like sarcasm 😉, according to Wired.com. But they've spread wide and far since then--in 2015, "face with tears of joy" (😂) became Oxford Dictionaries' "Word" of the Year. Read the Wired Guide to Emoji for a comprehensive look at the history and future of this digital "language."

7 Morningstar issued Analyst Ratings of Negative to seven funds in the fourth quarter of 2017. The Negative ratings signal that investors should avoid these funds at all costs, says Katie Riechart, a director of equity strategies in our manager research group. See the list here.

3 Investors spend a massive amount of time trying to make all the right moves. Far less energy and commentary is committed to the topic of how not to make the wrong moves. Director of global exchange-traded fund research Ben Johnson discusses three common mistakes, the potential consequences of these behavioral blunders, and how you might be able to avoid them.

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