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.

2 Director of personal finance Christine Benz explores two ways savers can upgrade their 401(k)s without leaving their job. For one, if their plans offer what's called an "in-service distribution," they can move a portion of their money from the company retirement plan to an IRA even as they remain with the same employer. The other option is an "in-plan conversion," which some company retirement plans offer. It gives employees the chance to convert traditional 401(k) assets to Roth 401(k) assets within the confines of the same plan.

52.2 million One of the takeaways from Apple's second-quarter earnings release was that there was no "supercycle" for the iPhone X this year: Apple sold 52.2 million iPhones in the September quarter, up 3% year over year. But we still see solid demand for those devices as seen in second-quarter earnings and the third-quarter forecast, says Brian Colello, director of technology, media, and telecom equity research. The second takeaway is that other products and services also did particularly well, beating expectations. Colello thinks sales of these other products--wearables, Airpods, and services like App Store around the iPhone--create switching costs for Apple and give it a narrow moat.

3% Big pharma companies Pfizer and Merck reported first-quarter earnings. Both companies' results came in a bit below what director of healthcare equity research Damien Conover and the Street consensus were anticipating. Conover thinks that over the long term both firms are very well-positioned with their pipelines and very strong pricing power with a lot of the drugs, and very strong dividend yields: above 3% for both stocks. Both stocks are undervalued, in his opinion.

93% The average American spends 93% of his or her time indoors, according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, can help "restore our mood, give us back our energy and vitality, refresh and rejuvenate us," says author Qing Li. Check out Li's tips for effective forest bathing in this Time article.

4 It may seem like there's nothing Warren Buffett and Berkshire can't do with the $116 billion in cash on its balance sheet. But the truth is, the conglomerate's days of being nimble enough to take advantage of small-cap, fast-growing opportunities are behind it. Individual investors, though, have opportunities available that Berkshire is probably too large to take an interest in. We screened mid- and small-cap stocks in our coverage using some of Buffett's famous investing criteria and came up with these on four profitable, high-quality stocks.

10 And speaking of Berkshire, senior analyst David Kathman takes a look at 10 mutual funds with the biggest stakes in the stocks held in Berkshire Hathaway's investment portfolio, as listed in Warren Buffett's annual letter to shareholders and in Berkshire's annual report.

4 Fund flow data has lately revealed that investors are behaving in ways that are counter to longer-term trends. Notably, outflows from passive U.S. equity fund shares are outpacing inflows. Also, the lion's share of outflows came from only two passive funds last month--the iShares core S&P 500 fund and the SPDR S&P 500 fund. Senior analyst Kevin McDevitt weighs in.

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