Morningstar�s Stewardship Grade for stocks helps investors identify and compare companies that consistently align their interests with those of shareholders. These grades are assigned to more than 1500 stocks in the database that are covered by analysts. The grades reflect our analysts' assessment of a company's demonstrated commitment to shareholders, and fall in to four broad areas:
Transparency
Board Independence
Incentives & Ownership
Shareholder Friendliness
Morningstar stock analysts base the Stewardship Grades on public filings, previous management actions, conversations with company officials, and their own expertise. Each category has a bonus question that can add to a company's final grade. All stocks are graded on an absolute basis. There is no "curve". Therefore, if a company engages in practices that Morningstar analysts think do not reflect good stewardship of investors' capital, it will receive a poor grade regardless of how other firms may have scored.
Each stock is assigned a letter grade, from A (best) to F (worst):
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Very Poor
