Wall Street Zen Downgrades Morningstar (NASDAQ:MORN) to Hold

Morningstar (NASDAQ:MORN) was downgraded by Wall Street Zen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note issued on Saturday.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Rothschild & Co Redburn set a $210.00 price target on shares of Morningstar in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. BMO Capital Markets restated an “outperform” rating and set a $212.00 price objective on shares of Morningstar in a research report on Friday, June 26th. Weiss Ratings raised Morningstar from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a report on Friday, August 14th. Finally, UBS Group decreased their target price on Morningstar from $280.00 to $260.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Morningstar has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $227.33.

Morningstar Stock Performance

Shares of MORN opened at $217.65 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $8.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.61 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.66, a current ratio of 1.06 and a quick ratio of 1.06. Morningstar has a 1 year low of $141.49 and a 1 year high of $263.67. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $184.22 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $178.08.

Morningstar (NASDAQ:MORN) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The business services provider reported $3.10 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.83 by $0.27. Morningstar had a net margin of 16.43% and a return on equity of 38.57%. The firm had revenue of $663.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $649.72 million.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Morningstar news, Chairman Joseph D. Mansueto sold 7,906 shares of Morningstar stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $210.26, for a total value of $1,662,315.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman directly owned 7,960,570 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,673,789,448.20. This trade represents a 0.10% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 86,500 shares of company stock worth $17,824,451 in the last three months. 38.80% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. California State Teachers Retirement System grew its position in Morningstar by 12,070.7% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 3,580,971 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $558,703,000 after acquiring an additional 3,551,548 shares in the last quarter. Bamco Inc. NY purchased a new position in shares of Morningstar in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $545,937,000. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Morningstar in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $324,792,000. Morgan Stanley increased its position in shares of Morningstar by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 2,006,325 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $435,995,000 after purchasing an additional 47,360 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP increased its position in shares of Morningstar by 85.4% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,136,213 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $246,910,000 after purchasing an additional 523,387 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 57.02% of the company’s stock.

Morningstar Company Profile

Morningstar, Inc is a leading provider of independent investment research, data, and analytics, serving both individual investors and financial professionals. The company offers comprehensive coverage of financial products, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), stocks, bonds and market indexes. Morningstar’s proprietary rating systems and research methodologies help clients assess the risk and return profiles of investment opportunities and make informed decisions.

Its core products include Morningstar Direct, an institutional investment analysis platform; Morningstar Office Cloud, a portfolio management solution for advisors; and Morningstar Data, which delivers extensive datasets through APIs and data feeds.