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.

4 Charitable giving is invariably on every year-end financial-planning to-do list--year in and year out. Director of personal finance Christine Benz outlines four key charitable giving strategies that retirees should consider before year-end.

5 Speaking of charitable giving, there are important things to consider when choosing a donor-advised fund. Donor-advised funds differ in terms of their investment minimums, ongoing fees, and investment lineups; answering these five questions can help you narrow the field.

2 Holiday sales are an incredibly important time for retailers, accounting for about 20% of total sales, and the period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is key, says senior equity analyst Bridget Weishaar. In an NRF survey, it was estimated that 69% of Americans plan to shop during the Thanksgiving weekend. Weishaar suggests two stocks that are well positioned to capitalize on trends such as online shopping and a longer holiday shopping season.

14 Do you know the difference between a snood and a wattle? Did you know turkeys can run at speeds of up to 25 mph? Read all 14 fun facts about turkeys from Smithsonian.org.

25 We sorted our entire U.S. coverage list by price/fair value to find the 25 most overvalued sticks. Though we tempted to label the stocks on the resulting "most expensive" list as "turkeys" in celebration of the upcoming holiday, it isn't a list of terrible investments. In fact, it contains many stocks that we'd love to own at the right price. So, we settled for "overstuffed" instead. Click here to see the full list.

7 During our annual Portfolio Makeover Week on Morningstar.com, Christine Benz provided suggestions and strategies for helping real investors improve their portfolios, considering things like investment selection, asset allocation, asset location, in-retirement withdrawal rates, and more. Benz discusses seven key takeaways from the series for investors to bear in mind when conducting their own year-end portfolio review.

10 Our primary goal with the Ultimate Stock-Pickers concept is to uncover investment ideas that not only reflect the most recent transactions of a group of top investment managers, but are also timely enough for investors to get some value from them. This quarter saw a higher number of interesting and arguably more well-known stocks on both of our top-10 high-conviction and top-10 new-money purchase lists trading at discounts to our analysts' fair value estimates.

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