Our Investment Principles

Here are our investment principles that guide our decision making process:

We put investors first.

• We believe firms that put investors first win in the long term because their investors win.
• Since 1984, Morningstar, Inc. has been helping investors reach their financial goals. Our fiduciary duty to our principals is paramount.

We’re independent-minded.

• To deliver results, we think it’s necessary to invest with conviction, even when it means standing apart from the crowd.
• Our research shows that making decisions based on fundamental analysis, rather than short-term factors and sentiment, delivers better long-term investment results. 

We invest for the long term.

• A patient, long-term view helps us stay the course during the market’s ups and downs and take advantage of opportunities when they arise. 
• Investing with a multi decade horizon aligns with investors focus on increasing their purchasing power over their lifetimes.  
• The long term is the only period where fundamental, valuation driven investing works.

We’re valuation-driven investors.

• We anchor on an investment’s underlying intrinsic value, rather than fleeting news, sentiment or momentum. Much of the market’s daily volatility is meaningless noise. 
• Valuation-driven investing through a long-term focus on the difference between price and intrinsic value enables investors to get more than they’re paying for. 

We take a fundamental approach.

• Powerful research is behind each decision we hold, and we invest significant time and resources to truly understand what we own and why we own it.
• Fundamental investing incorporates a focus on the future earnings of an investment and not its prospective price change.

We strive to minimise costs.

• Controlling costs helps investors build wealth by letting them keep more of what they earn.
• Investment returns are uncertain, but costs are not. 

We build portfolios holistically.

• To help manage risk and deliver better returns, truly diversified portfolios combine investments with different underlying drivers, improving stability and total returns over time.
• Portfolios should be more than the sum of their parts.
• True diversification can have a powerful impact on a portfolio’s risk-adjusted returns – but simply holding more investments isn’t the same as true diversification.