How Morningstar Turns Datapoints into Analytics for Financial Research

From its inception in Chicago in 1984, Morningstar’s mission has been to create great products that help investors reach their financial goals.

It all starts with a database of approximately 446,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 10 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets.

The challenge for Morningstar’s staff of 170 investment analysts is to turn billions of datapoints into trustworthy information for investors at all levels of sophistication.

This presentation will focus on the process of the path of data-point to research methodology.

This event will be live streamed to the public. Click on the “register for tickets” link below to register and watch the free live stream.

Dan Lefkovitz will lead this talk. He is a director of global fund research strategy for Morningstar. In this role, he works with Morningstar’s fund research team across 15 markets to develop new initiatives and advance Morningstar’s thought leadership. Prior to assuming his current role in 2012, he spent four years in London managing the business and operations side of Morningstar’s pan-European fund research team. He also helped to build Morningstar’s fund research capability in Asia. Lefkovitz participated in the development of the Morningstar Analyst Rating™ and the Global Fund Report. Previously, he was a senior mutual fund analyst for Morningstar in Chicago. He specialized in international equities strategies, served as Morningstar’s lead analyst for Fidelity Investments, and edited the monthly newsletter, Morningstar Fidelity Fund Family Report from 2006 to 2008. Lefkovitz has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg Television, and the Wall Street Journal and has participated in investment conferences worldwide as a presenter, moderator, and chair. Prior to joining Morningstar in 2004, Lefkovitz served as the Director of Risk Analysis for Marvin Zonis + Associates, a Chicago-based global macro consultancy. He coauthored The Kimchi Matters: Global Business and Local Politics in a Crisis-Driven World (Agate, 2003), re-leased as Risk Rules in 2011.

Lefkovitz holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago.