Morningstar is a Chicago-based financial-services firm that provides independent investment research, data, ratings, indexes, and software to individual investors, financial advisors, and asset managers worldwide.
Morningstar, Inc. was founded in 1984 by Joe Mansueto, who started the company from a one-bedroom Chicago apartment with $80,000 after a stint as a stock analyst. It remains headquartered in Chicago and operates roughly 40 offices across some 29 countries. Morningstar has traded publicly on the Nasdaq under the ticker MORN since its 2005 initial public offering; Kunal Kapoor has served as chief executive since 2017, with Mansueto continuing as executive chairman and the firm's largest shareholder.
The company serves both retail investors and financial professionals. Individual investors reach its news, analysis, and fund and equity research through the Morningstar Investor subscription, while advisors and institutions rely on professional platforms such as Morningstar Direct and Advisor Workstation. Morningstar has expanded well beyond mutual-fund research through acquisitions, including 📝PitchBook for private-capital-markets data, the DBRS Morningstar credit-ratings business, Sustainalytics for ESG and sustainability ratings, and Morningstar Indexes for market benchmarks.
Morningstar is best known for its rating systems. The star rating ranks funds from one to five stars based on past risk-adjusted returns, while the forward-looking Medalist Rating assigns Gold, Silver, Bronze, Neutral, or Negative grades drawn from analyst and quantitative assessment. These ratings are widely cited in fund marketing and can influence where investor assets flow, though financial journalists, including the Wall Street Journal, have questioned the star rating's power to predict future performance.