Morningstar Index FAQ

What are Morningstar's indexes and ticker symbols?

What are these indexes designed for?

What is unique about Morningstar's indexes?

What are Morningstar's indexes and ticker symbols?  

Based on the same methodology as the Morningstar Style Box™, Morningstar has developed a comprehensive family of 16 indexes targeting 97% of the U.S. equity market. The Morningstar indexes include a broad market index, three cap indexes, three composite style indexes, and nine style indexes.

Index Name                                     Ticker

Broad Market Index   

Morningstar US MarketSM Index           $MSTAR

 

Cap Indexes   

Morningstar Large CapSM Index           $MLCP

Morningstar Mid CapSM Index              $MMCP

Morningstar Small CapSM Index           $MSCP

 

Composite Style Indexes   

Morningstar US GrowthSM Index          $MGRO

Morningstar US CoreSM Index             $MCOR

Morningstar US ValueSM Index            $MVAL

 

Style Indexes   

Morningstar Large GrowthSM Index     $MLGR

Morningstar Mid GrowthSM Index        $MMGR

Morningstar Small GrowthSM Index     $MSGR

Morningstar Large CoreSM Index        $MLCR

Morningstar Mid CoreSM Index           $MMCR

Morningstar Small CoreSM Index        $MSCR

Morningstar Large ValueSM Index       $MLVL

Morningstar Mid ValueSM Index          $MMVL

Morningstar Small ValueSM Index       $MSVL

    

What are these indexes designed for?

  

Portfolio Building Blocks

Performance Measures

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What is unique about Morningstar's indexes?  

In addition to it's robust 10-factor methodology, Morningstar's indexes are unique in several ways:

Distinct  

Diversification depends upon the ability to make clear investment distinctions. For the purposes of asset allocation and portfolio assembly, Morningstar's style box methodology was designed to uniquely classify stocks by style and capitalization. To enable investors to create non-overlapping and comprehensive portfolios, our methodology maps each stock to only one of the 9 style boxes.  

Many index families use an overlapping index approach where two indexes contain the same stock. Other families choose to split the market cap of a single stock between growth and value indexes if their style is not clear. To Morningstar, this blurring of distinctions makes asset allocation more difficult.

Style Pure

Morningstar's holds the view that not all stocks are growth or value. Where neither growth or value characteristics predominate, a stock is classified as core. Although a few index families recognize core or neutral stocks exist, these families exclude them in their style indexes. Morningstar's family is unique in that it offers the ability to target investment in companies that generally represent the mainstream and are often "blue chip" holdings. Also, because we divide the style universe into core, in addition to growth and value, the characteristics of the Morningstar's style indexes are more pure than other style index families. This affords investors greater possibilities for diversification in asset allocation.

Designed for Investability

From the beginning, Morningstar's indexes have incorporated the best practices in index construction. Designed to support portfolio assembly, they are completely rules-based, free-float weighted, fully investable, buffered to limit unnecessary turnover, calculated in real-time, and end-of-day values are available in four currencies.  

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See Also

To find an Index Report

Index Methodology

Using the Market Barometer