The Morningstar Category average is designed to represent the average return of funds within a category for a period.
Morningstar Category Average
What is the Morningstar Category average?
It is more accurate than a simple mean return of the current constituents of the category because it accounts for funds that have changed categories over that time and share classes/funds that have subsequently liquidated. This ensures that the Morningstar Category average is free of survivorship bias.
The Morningstar Category average provides a meaningful way to gauge a fund’s performance relative to a set of comparable peers. For more information on the Morningstar Category and the Morningstar Category average return calculation, read the full methodologies.