MORN Morningstar Inc

CHICAGO, Feb. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, announced today an agreement with Interactive Data Corporation, a leading provider of independent fixed income evaluations and reference data, to supply individual bond information to Morningstar's advisor software products. The bond universe will be available next month in Morningstar® Advisor Workstation(SM), the research and investment planning software platform used by roughly one out of every four financial advisors in the United States, and in April in Morningstar Office(SM), a portfolio management solution for independent advisors.

Morningstar will now feature reports and research on more than 1.3 million individual bonds, including corporate, government and municipal issues. It represents the first time an advisor software platform has offered comprehensive bond data alongside underlying holdings-based analytics for multi-security portfolios.

"For the longest time, individual bond data was the missing piece of the puzzle in advisor software solutions," said Melinda Sgariglia, vice president of broker/dealer solutions for Morningstar. "With Interactive Data's coverage of the bond universe, advisors using Advisor Workstation or Morningstar Office can now incorporate bonds into their client portfolio reports to gain a full, holistic view of an investor's holdings."

"We are pleased to be able to provide a wide range of fixed income data and evaluations to Morningstar for integration into their advisor software products," said Jean Aiken, vice president, business development group for Interactive Data. "The availability of our depth of descriptive market data and independent evaluations on Morningstar's platform provides advisors with advanced capabilities for analyzing portfolio information."

Advisors will be able to use Morningstar's investment database to search, screen, and sort bond information and create Investment Detail Reports™ on individual bonds, which will contain up to 10 years of performance history so that advisors can evaluate how the bond issue has weathered a variety of market conditions. Advisors can also use the report's bond issue details and risk exposure to evaluate the bond's role within a portfolio and compare against other bond issues.

Once the bond data is available, when advisors import their client portfolios from third-party integration partners into Advisor Workstation or Morningstar Office, the software will automatically recognize the fixed income securities in those portfolios, saving time and resources by eliminating the need to manually map the security or assign a less-accurate proxy.

Morningstar Advisor Workstation provides financial advisors with investment planning, client presentation, portfolio analysis, and investment research tools. It is licensed to and through institutions such as broker/dealers, custodians, and clearing firms as a web-based modular platform designed to work with a firm's other back-office systems and applications. The bond universe will be initially available through the Clients & Portfolios and Research modules, with availability in the Hypotheticals and Planning modules later in 2011.

Morningstar Office is a global practice and portfolio management platform for independent financial advisors and wealth managers. This single, all-inclusive platform is designed to support the core aspects of an advisor's practice. It features portfolio management and performance reporting, advanced research capabilities, sophisticated investment planning, and intuitive customer relationship management (CRM) tools for batch reporting and secure communications using the platform's Client Web Portal and document vault. Morningstar Office users also have the option to outsource all of their account management and reconciliation with Morningstar® Back Office Services(SM).

For more information, please visit http://global.morningstar.com/bonds.

About Morningstar, Inc.

Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of Internet, software, and print-based products and services for individuals, financial advisors, and institutions. Morningstar provides data on approximately 370,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 4 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets. The company has operations in 26 countries.

About Interactive Data Corporation

Interactive Data Corporation is a trusted leader in financial information. Thousands of financial institutions and active traders, as well as hundreds of software and service providers, subscribe to the company's fixed income evaluations, reference data, real-time market data, trading infrastructure services, fixed income analytics, desktop solutions, and web-based solutions. Interactive Data's offerings support clients around the world with mission-critical functions, including portfolio valuation, regulatory compliance, risk management, electronic trading, and wealth management. Interactive Data is headquartered in Bedford, Mass. and has more than 2,400 employees in offices worldwide. Pricing, evaluations and reference data are provided in the U.S. through Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data, Inc. and internationally through Interactive Data (Europe) Ltd. and Interactive Data (Australia) Pty Ltd.

For more information, please visit www.interactivedata.com

©2011 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved.

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SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.