Morningstar’s Top Stories of 2023

Stories of a rapidly changing economy dominated 2023. Morningstar readers sought insights on portfolio construction in the current interest-rate environment, the impact of broader economic trends on investments, all things retirement, the possible return of the 60/40 portfolio, the regional banking crisis, and the search for undervalued areas of the market. But regardless of the environment, our investment picks continued to attract the largest share of our readers’ attention.

Our most-read articles for the year include:

These articles highlighting our investment picks are regularly updated. Bookmark these pages, or keep an eye out for them in our newsletters, to get the latest ideas from our analysts.

Here are some more highlights from 2023.

Topic Spotlight: Stocks

Stocks were far and away the most read-about securities throughout the year. Our readership tilted toward value and dividend stocks in 2023.

Unsurprisingly, one headline that grabbed a lot of attention: A Dividend Aristocrat to Buy That’s More Than 40% Undervalued. The underlying analysis captures the equity research team’s focus on company fundamentals, moat drivers, and valuation.

Interest in specific stocks’ quote pages is generally correlated with market cap, but this year also saw a few more buzzy names capture readers’ attention. The top 10 most-viewed company pages in 2023 were:

• Apple AAPL
• Microsoft MSFT
• Tesla TSLA
• Amazon.com AMZN
• Nvidia NVDA
• Verizon VZ
• Pfizer PFE
• The Walt Disney Company DIS
• Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B
• Alphabet GOOG

Two of these are 5-star stocks, and four are rated 4 stars. Readers with Investor subscriptions can see which are which.

Morningstar readers also devoured chief rating officer Jeffrey Ptak’s examination of stock performance over the past three decades. It turns out there’s an easy way to beat the S&P 500.

What You Watched and Listened To: Videos and Podcasts

If you still want to pick stocks, check out our new show Monday Morning, a livestream featuring investment specialist Susan Dziubinski and chief U.S. market strategist David Sekera.

It’s always topical, has interesting investment ideas, and is full of insights to get you thinking. One of my personal favorites is 5 Cheap Stocks to Buy Before Interest Rates Fall Further.

Every week, our audience tuned into The Long View, hosted by Ptak and director of personal finance Christine Benz. This year’s most-listened-to episodes include:

• Bill Bernstein: Revisiting The Four Pillars of Investing
• Michael Kitces: How Higher Yields Affect Asset Allocation and Retirement Planning
• Scott Burns: The Case for a Simple Retirement Plan
• Bill Nygren: The State of Value Investing Today

We also relaunched our Investing Insights podcast and video series this year. Both are hosted by senior multimedia editor Ivanna Hampton, who curates a great highlight reel and interviews Morningstar experts to go deeper into the important topics of the week. This year’s audience favorites include:

• What To Do With Your Cash Right Now
• Berkshire Hathaway: 4 Questions and 5 Cheap Stocks
• Why are Active ETFs Everywhere, and Are Investors Abandoning Mutual Funds?

Topic Spotlight: Retirement

As always, retirement was a top focus for Morningstar readers. Benz, director of research John Rekenthaler, and portfolio strategist Amy Arnott are Morningstar’s leading voices on this complicated subject. Their coverage spanned everything from the validity of the 4% withdrawal rate to changing rules for IRAs to the best sources of retirement income.

Our retirement coverage also benefited from contributing voices. Tax- and retirement-planning experts and thought leaders Ed Slott, Mark Miller, and Denise Appleby wrote on topics such as RMD rules for inherited IRAs, the pitfalls of the little-known “tax torpedo,” and the impact of Secure 2.0 on retirement contributions.

The most-read retirement articles in 2023 were:

Topic Spotlight: Mutual Funds and ETFs

On the fund side of the coin, Morningstar readers spent more time on mutual fund content and company pages than they did on ETFs, though interest in ETFs continues to grow.

Our analysts covered all angles of the fund market in 2023 and even launched an update to our medalist ratings.

Readers devoured content on bond funds and anything related to dividend funds. Dividends were such a draw that even director of ratings Russel Kinnel’s video 3 Mediocre Dividend Funds ranked highly in our funds content.

The most-read mutual funds content included:

As the conversation around active ETFs grew in the second half of 2023, so did our readership on the subject. Manager Research analyst Ryan Jackson explained what’s behind the rise in active ETFs, an episode of Investing Insights dug further into the trend, and data journalist Katherine Lynch examined the active value ETFs capturing the most investor attention.

The most-read ETF content in 2023 included:

What You Read: Asset Managers

Vanguard was the asset manager that attracted the most interest across the site in 2023. Several Vanguard-focused articles made it onto our most-read list, including:

Vanguard also had the most-viewed asset management company page, followed by Fidelity, JPMorgan Asset Management, American Funds, and T. Rowe Price. These pages for asset managers were revived this year and steadily grew in engagement as readers used them to research fund lineups and manager details.

What else do you want us to cover in 2024? Please feel free to drop us a line with any ideas you have at editor-in-chief@morningstar.com. Thank you for reading in 2023, and we’ll see you in 2024.