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.

80% In his survey of large-growth medalist funds with the best and worst Sustainability Ratings, David Kathman notes the success of intentionally sustainable mutual funds in our rating framework:

Not surprisingly, funds that explicitly commit themselves to sustainability as part of their mandate tend to have high Sustainability Ratings, with 80% earning ratings of Above Average or High.

8 Questions Russ Kinnel lists the questions he hopes to have answered at the upcoming Morningstar Investment Conference:

3) What are good innovations in the fund industry, and what are the gimmicks? Vanguard CEO William McNabb should have plenty to share on this subject. But I'm also interested to hear what AQR's Cliff Asness and Research Affilliates' Rob Arnott have to say on a variety of topics including industry innovation.

40 trillion yen While there are no current plans to subject retail depositors to negative interest rates, Japanese savers have gone to the mattresses:

About 40 trillion yen ($360 billion) has piled up in homes across Japan, according to a Dai-ichi Life Research Institute estimate--equivalent to about 8 percent of gross domestic product.

Approximately $3 trillion Michael Wong discusses how the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule will affect the financial sector:

We still believe in our initial assessment that the rule primarily affects approximately $3 trillion of advised IRA assets; that there's approximately $19 billion of revenue related to these assets; operating margins on IRA assets could fall several percentage points…

Ralph Wanger adds his perspective here, in an online version of his column for Morningstar Magazine. In late April, Scott Cooley noted that while imperfect, the rule is good for investors:

To be sure, that DOL's fiduciary rule is not perfect. No rule ever is. But the Labor Department did a good job of listening to industry concerns, sifting through them, and responding to those that merited attention. As attorney Marcia Wagner of the Wagner Law Group told The Wall Street Journal, the DOL "took a rule which would have been impossible to fully comply with and made a rule that is going to be difficult but not impossible to comply with." And the DOL accomplished these improvements while leaving intact the key investor protections in its original proposal. That is a great outcome for investors.

12 million That's the number of Americans who use payday loans each year. 1.02 As of Thursday's close, that was the overall price/fair value ratio of all stocks rated by Morningstar. Christine Benz notes this valuation in her piece on deploying cash in a lofty market:

…deciding what to do with a big cash hoard is much more tricky after the market has already rallied a lot. While stocks have basically flatlined since the end of 2014, they're still up about 15% on an annualized basis since bottoming out in early 2009. Given that equity returns have averaged less than 10% over very long time frames, that's quite a run indeed. And while stocks don't look egregiously expensive on a bottom-up basis, nor are they a screaming buy: The typical stock in Morningstar's coverage universe is trading just above its fair value currently.

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