What's Morningstar worth?
From Financial Times
What is the value of the nation's leading publisher of mutual fund data? Those looking for the answer should turn to Japan. While Morningstar is rumored to be preparing for an IPO, Morningstar Japan has done it. The company, which is one of seven listed on the newly formed NASDAQ Japan, rocketed 43 percent to a market cap of $1.16 billion. This leaves the venture with a price-to-sales ration of 424 based on $2.7 million in trailing sales and a price-to-earnings ration of nearly 10,000 (the company has slight earnings). Morningstar owns roughly 38 percent of the venture. Softbank Finance Corp. owns a majority stake and Toyo Keizai owns less than 5 percent of the venture.

Netfolio Aims to replace funds
From Barron's
Jim O'Shaughnessy may not have succeeded with his fund group, but that isn't stopping him from putting his investment ideas into practice. He is now running Netfolio, a Web-based portfolio creation tool that he believes could replace funds. With Netfolio an investor fills out a personal financial profile which includes a couple of psychological questions meant to assess risk tolerance. The system then generates a suggested asset allocation, including a single recommended basket of five to 40 stocks derived from one of Netfolio's 90 quantitative strategies. The account minimum is $5,000 and the annual fee is $195. The system is similar to Foliofn.com.

Who's Next?
From The Wall Street Journal
European firms shopping spree for U.S. asset managers over the past two weeks has started a round of speculation of who will be next. Names mentioned so far include: T. Rowe Price, Franklin Resources, and Nicholas-Applegate among others. Today's Journal adds to the speculation. The paper's target? Houston-based Fayez Sarofim which could go for between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. Mellon Bank is the rumored buyer. So far this year the paper reports that $7.8 billion of deals have been done according to SNL Securities. A Fayez deal would put the total into record territory, surpassing 1997's $9.3 billion in deals.

Of Interest

The International Herald Tribune examines the recent success if socially responsible funds.

The Detroit News looks at the top international funds.

Fidelity Growth Company is the "hot" fund in today's Detroit News. 

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