Asset Allocation

pazzazz

Another one for Krista:

In the previous portfolio function it gave a date for fund valuation but this has now gone (as far as I can see ?). There is a 1 day return figure listed but there is no way to be sure these figures refer to the same day ?

Supernova

Ian_W wrote: »

portfolio X-ray tool

I've just seen that. Looks very nice.

dunstonh

Only IFAs get access to that on TN and I guess dunstonh and colleagues have to pay a fair whack for the privilege! So thanks to you and Morningstar I say.

£100pm with Morningstar. S&P was more expensive. I am watching what happens with these two as S&P data was more comprehensive but cost a lot of money. If the best bits of the two come together and the pricing is somewhere in between then I may take a look.

moneyandmountains

pazzazz wrote: »

Another one for Krista:

In the previous portfolio function it gave a date for fund valuation but this has now gone (as far as I can see ?). There is a 1 day return figure listed but there is no way to be sure these figures refer to the same day ?

This was gone, but is now back as a rollover.
Move the mouse cursor over the fund price, and it will tell you the date.

Morningstar seem to be proactive at fixing the teething problems and implementing new features.

Thanks to Krista, Niculie and the team at Morningstar.

Morningstar_Krista

Hey again everyone!

Apologies for any delay in getting back to you--we've been focusing on adding some new site features, and there was a big Internet conference in London last week where we picked up some new ideas.

So...carnet...I've asked our data team leaders about the Investment Trust data points...it seems weird to me that we would drop discount to NAV, but maybe I'm missing something.

pazzazz and moneyandmountains: Yes, the date is in a rollover. Given that the dates are usually all the same, we thought this made sense. What we didn't realise is that you guys LOVE to come back every night between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. to see if the new prices are in yet, and listing that date their explictly helps you see that. So we've logged it as a feature request and are trying to see if we can squeeze it back into the "Snapshot" view.

Note, however, that the date is definitely explictly back on the Quickrank...it's on the Short-Term tab (which went live Wenesday night). Not my favourite location for it, but take a look and let me know what you think.

dunstonh and all: Our product for financial advisers, Morningstar Adviser Workstation, does cost £100/month + VAT. This gives IFAs access to PDF reporting capability, and the ability to save searches and fund lists. Our audience for Morningstar.co.uk is individual investors...our corporate philosophy and approach is to make sure individual investors are empowered in their investment decisions. We're able to offer Morningstar.co.uk for free because we run ads; we do have future plans to offer premium tools, content, and services to individual investors for a small fee...hop on over to our US site, Morningstar.com, so see what I mean.

Lastly, we pushed a bunch of tweaks and features live on Wednesday evening...check out the new interactive graph on the fund report:
http://www.morningstar.co.uk/UK/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?tab=7&Id=F0GBR04S23&lang=en-GB&lastPageURL=
It's only in Beta right now so it's a little quirky, but it's fun. (I'm biased.)

Other items that you might notice...
The home page is a lot faster
E-mail an article to a friend
More intuitive column sorting in Quickrank (more field-specific in terms of whether it's low-high or high-low)
Ability to bookmark articles to social bookmarking sites

Don't hesitate to contact me or our support team directly with questions. You can reach us on support@morningstar.co.uk

Krista

pazzazz

Krista

Firstly thanks for posting and I do find the morningstar generally a very good sort of info.

and now for the grumble: the portfolio and quickrank dates for funds don't appear to match up. The portfolio dates lag by several days. I don't know if this has always been the case or if I have just noticed since the portfolio was changed.
For example today (11th) - most funds in quickrank are dated 10th/11th and yet in portfolio I have nothing dated past the 8th.
It seems to catch up over a weekend or so but then lag all during the following week again ?

regards
P

moneyandmountains

pazzazz wrote: »

Krista
and now for the grumble: the portfolio and quickrank dates for funds don't appear to match up. The portfolio dates lag by several days. I don't know if this has always been the case or if I have just noticed since the portfolio was changed.

pazazz. I noticed this as well. This didn't use to be the case, as most funds were updated late evening, or at least by morning the following day.

I don't know whether this is a glitch this week, or an attempt to differentiate between free and premium product. It would be useful to know either way.

Recurring fund purchases seem to be broken as well, as it doesn't seem to have updated funds set to monthly purchase on the 10th.

Whilst some of the new features are good, the edit portfolio feature is much more limited than before. Previously, if you put in a date and a number of fund units purchased, it would fill in the price.
Now you have to work this out yourself.
e.g. manually copy fund prices from transaction notes.
Whilst ostensibly this is more accurate, it is substantially more work for general portfolio monitoring.

Additionally, this removes the ability to utilise historical prices.
e.g. I normally zero the portfolio gains at the start of each year, so that gain/loss only shows the current year. This keeps the percentages sensible, and allows me to see the portfolio performance when buying funds at different intervals throughout the year. After all, if I want to see long term performance, I can just click on the Performance Tab.

I wonder if the intention is to push out the new portfolio tool onto fund platforms such as Fidelity that subscribe to the Morningstar features.
Obviously, there will always be differences between free/advertising funded offerings and premium product, but it would be interesting to see what these are.

Morningstar_Krista

pazzazz wrote: »

Krista

and now for the grumble: the portfolio and quickrank dates for funds don't appear to match up. The portfolio dates lag by several days. I don't know if this has always been the case or if I have just noticed since the portfolio was changed.

Hi Pazzazz,
The developers are looking into this one...it is a bit strange! The data is all in the same database...should have more info for you early next week.
Krista

Morningstar_Krista

moneyandmountains wrote: »

I noticed this as well...I don't know whether this is a glitch this week, or an attempt to differentiate between free and premium product. It would be useful to know either way.

Hi moneyandmountains!
Definitely NOT an attempt to differentiate. We're on it. Watch for an update early next week.

moneyandmountains wrote: »

Recurring fund purchases seem to be broken as well, as it doesn't seem to have updated funds set to monthly purchase on the 10th.

I'll ask our team to schedule some transactions early this week and make sure they go through.

moneyandmountains wrote: »

Previously, if you put in a date and a number of fund units purchased, it would fill in the price. Now you have to work this out yourself.

A new price lookup feature is on the list...

moneyandmountains wrote: »

I wonder if the intention is to push out the new portfolio tool onto fund platforms such as Fidelity that subscribe to the Morningstar features.

We're still in the planning stages on our next steps, but it's fair to say that the tools available via Morningstar.co.uk and elsewhere hadn't--until recently--been updated in a very long time. We do want everyone to have the latest tools available, but the timeframe for that will differ depending on the partner.

Hope that helps!
Krista

Morningstar_Krista

carnet wrote: »

In that case, perhaps you could explain the logic of this, as stated in Money Management, March 2007 ;

"Following a detailed review by Standard & Poors of its Investment Trust Database, the following fields will no longer be available [in the MM Statistics]

DISCOUNT TO NAV;
FUND SIZE;
MARKET CAP ...."

Many investors consider some or all of these fields to be vital in their IT research - certainly more so than the likes of SHARPE RATIOS and MAX LOSS which are now given

Hi again, Carnet...
OK, I heard back from our data and media teams, and they note that that message no longer appears in Money Management. I don't have a copy of MM handy, so I can't verify this myself, and it's not clear to me if that means the data is back or if it's still missing! But I didn't want to delay getting back to you any longer! I've got a couple more questions in to them to clarify...
Krista
http://www.morningstar.co.uk