Beginning June 10, Morningstar will include U.S. government bonds within the AAA category in our credit quality breakdown, and discontinue the separate government category. This is consistent with practice at rating agencies such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's, and accommodates differences in implied risk that may exist among government issues from around the globe. This will not impact the bond Style Box" for most funds; however, some funds may receive a revised assignment since credit risk is a component of the calculation.

Beginning with April 30, 2006 data, funds registered for sale in Europe will have a five- and 10-year Morningstar Rating, in addition to the three-year rating that European funds have had since 2001. Five- and 10-year ratings are immediately available in Morningstar Direct, Morningstar's institutional research product; five- and 10-year ratings will become available in other Morningstar products over the course of 2006.

As of April 30, 2006, Morningstar now rates money market funds available for sale in Europe over a period of three years, using Morningstar Risk Adjust Return.

On May 23, 2006, Morningstar will begin tracking the price return counterparts of the S&P 100, S&P 400, S&P 500, S&P 600 and S&P REIT. These S&P indexes will be amended to include a PR and TR at the end of each index name, specifying the price return and total return variants. Additionally, we are changing our methodology from monthly to daily reinvestment of dividends for the S&P total return variants.

To bring greater consistency across subaccount names, we have changed the short name effective March 16. The new subaccount short name will keep a 37 character limit but will combine an 11 character policy name with a 25 character fund short name.

Watch for the May 20 issue of Barron's and the new section entitled "Separate Accounts Quarterly Review. First published in February, this section includes articles about the separate account industry accompanied by a series of data tables. To help investors compare and analyze these investments, Morningstar is providing statistics such as total returns, fee information, and the Morningstar Rating" for our entire database of approximately 5,000 separate account strategies (including retail and institutional accounts) from about 1,000 money managers. The new section will appear in print and online editions on a regular basis.

Morningstar will exhibit at the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) Annual Conference in San Diego, CA, June 11-14, at the 2006 Fund Forum in Monaco, July 4-7, and at the Global Alternative Investment Management (GAIM) Europe Forum in Cannes, France, July 10-14. And we hope to see many of you at the Morningstar Investment Conference, June 28-30, in Chicago, IL.