Morningstar Launches Indexes Based on Picker Research

These indexes include the Ultimate Stock-Pickers, Ultimate Stock-Pickers Target Volatility 7 and Ultimate Stock-Pickers Target Volatility 10. BNP Paribas licensed these indexes to serve as benchmarks for three new structured bank notes expected to launch April 2.

In April 2009, Morningstar equity analysts began to research the quarterly holdings, purchases, and sales of 26 top investment managers, or what Morningstar calls the “Ultimate Stock-Pickers.” The Morningstar Ultimate Stock-Pickers Index combines the picks of these top managers with Morningstar’s independent equity research.

The Morningstar Index team first compiles a list of fund holdings from the managers selected by Morningstar’s research team and then pares the list down by excluding securities that Morningstar equity analysts believe are overvalued or inherently difficult to predict. Next, the index team examines how many of the well-regarded managers hold the security, how much of it they hold, and whether or not managers have been adding to the position to determine a fund manager conviction score. Securities with the highest manager conviction scores comprise the Morningstar Ultimate Stock-Pickers Index.

The Morningstar Ultimate Stock-Pickers Target Volatility 7 and 10 Indexes are similar in construction to the Ultimate Stock-Pickers Index, but seek to control volatility by moving assets in and out of cash positions to maintain standard deviations of seven and 10, respectively. Morningstar reconstitutes the indexes monthly.

For more information on Morningstar’s indexes, visit http://indexes.morningstar.com.