Morningstar announced the launch of Morningstar Research Portal (Research Portal), an investment research platform for financial advisors.
Research Portal harnesses Morningstar’s independent ratings and research, together with live market data and interactive charting, in an intuitive web-based platform, empowering advisors to bring personalized and timely investment ideas to their clients.
“Clients are looking for more from their advisors as their investment choices increase and the trend toward personalization continues. Research Portal interconnects Morningstar’s research with powerful new tools that enable advisors to swiftly identify investments that meet their clients’ needs, communicate those recommendations, and then monitor their investments continuously in a seamless way,” said Marc DeMoss, head of Morningstar research products.
“Morningstar’s research and ratings are expanding in line with the evolving motivations of today’s investor, and Research Portal helps advisors drive more timely and relevant client conversations.”
Research Portal makes the investment insights across Morningstar’s full analyst and quantitative coverage universe – more than 140,000 stocks, 320,000 mutual funds, and 24,000 ETFs – easily accessible to advisors via a modern, fast interface.
The platform’s workflows – such as the Watchlist, Model Portfolios, Pick Lists, and Compare functions – help a user discover and evaluate investment ideas under chosen criteria. Research Portal then keeps users up-to-date on the investments they care about with a dashboard that tracks global market activity and a Calendar feature that displays upcoming events, all of which can be customized for specific universes of investments.
The suite of tools within Research Portal closely connects advisors to Morningstar research so they can personalize their conversations with clients. For example, with Pick Lists, an advisor could reference the Europe Core list when seeking ideas for European exposure. The enhanced screener also has multiple configurable views that make it quick to broadly search for a security across custom filters.
In addition to data analysis, Research Portal can also be used thematically. The Morningstar Insights tab surfaces the latest editorial content from Morningstar thought leaders, grouped by topics like sustainability, policy impact, and retirement. Analyst notes, security and sustainability reports, and more are also available within the platform, the firm said.
Research Portal is available now to individual advisors and on an enterprise level. It is also integrated within Morningstar Advisor Workstation, replacing Morningstar Analyst Research Center, and within Morningstar Direct, replacing its now-retired Research Portal widget.
