Morningstar Announces Official Launch of Premium Membership for
Morningstar.ca™

TORONTO, Sept. 21 /CNW/ - Morningstar Research Inc., a Canadian subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), has officially launched a Premium Membership service on Morningstar.ca^™, its investment information website for individual investors. The Premium Membership service includes independent research on North American stocks, Canadian mutual funds, segregated funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs); Morningstar Stewardship Grades for fund firms; advanced stock, fund, and ETF screeners; and proprietary investment research tools.

"Morningstar.ca's Premium Membership service is designed for investors who recognize the value of independent investment research, tools, and accurate and complete data across mutual funds, stocks, and ETFs," said Scott Mackenzie, president and chief executive officer of Morningstar Research Inc. "We are committed to helping Canadian investors make better and more informed investing decisions and will continue to enhance the site with the addition of more powerful tools."

Mackenzie added, "We launched a free version of the site in June to give investors a sneak preview of our research and tools. In the fall, we plan to release a robust portfolio management tool that will help investors build portfolios in Canadian and U.S. currencies covering Canadian funds, North American stocks, and North American ETFs. We will also release an improved version of the Morningstar Portfolio X-Ray^™ tool that provides a detailed breakdown of a portfolio based on asset classes, stock style, and sectors, and will include a detailed fees and expenses analysis. And investors will be able to see their exposure to stocks across their entire portfolio through the Stock Intersection^™ report."

Morningstar.ca's Premium Membership includes:

• Independent equity research on approximately 1,700 North American stocks covered by more than 100 Morningstar analysts;
• Analyst Reports on more than 300 Canadian mutual funds;
• Analyst Reports on 395 segregated funds and North American ETFs;
• Morningstar^® Stewardship Grades^™ for Canadian fund firms, designed to help investors identify and compare fund companies that do a good job—or a poor job—of aligning their interests with those of fund unitholders; and
• Interactive fund, stock, and ETF screeners that allow users to search by investment style, performance, tax analysis, and the Morningstar Rating^™. Searches can be saved and retrieved for future use.

In addition, Morningstar recently launched the following new tools under the Premium Membership:

• Similar Funds tool that distinguishes funds in Canadian Investment Funds Standards Committee categories based on performance and exposure to asset classes and world regions. A portfolio, performance, and overall similarity score of 0-100 indicates how similar or dissimilar funds are to each other;  
• Library Search functionality that lets investors find Morningstar.ca articles by keyword searches dating back to 2002; and
• Market Heat Maps that indicate what stocks are leading and trailing the pack on the S&P/TSX 60, S&P/TSX Capped Composite, NASDAQ 100, and S&P 100 indexes.

In the United States, Morningstar.com's tools have been recognized by Money Magazine, Kiplinger's Personal Finance and Barron's as among the best on the web. The U.S. site currently has more than 140,000 Premium Members.

The Premium Membership on Morningstar.ca is available as a monthly membership fee of $24.95 plus applicable taxes, or an annual membership fee of $249.95 plus applicable taxes. More information about the Premium Membership, along with a 14-day free trial of the service, is available at www.morningstar.ca.

About Morningstar
Morningstar Research Inc. is a Canadian subsidiary of Chicago-based Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Morningstar offers an extensive line of Internet, software, and print-based products and services for individuals, financial advisors, and institutions. Morningstar provides data on approximately 360,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 4 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets. The company has operations in 21 countries.

©2010 Morningstar. All Rights Reserved.

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Media Contact:
Isabell Grygianiec, 416-484-7868 or [email protected]