Free Morningstar Stock Research
Update: This week reports for 10 companies with both dividend yield and dividend growth are available for free at Morningstar.
Originally posted on January 7, 2006.
As I started working my way through Barron’s today, I notice an ad by Morningstar. They are offering 15 free research reports on wide moat stocks that currently have their 5-star rating. No registration is required. You just have to visit www.morningstar.com/barrons1. (The link didn’t work in Firefox 1.5 for some reason, but it works in Internet Explorer.) The company research reports include:
- Abbott Laboritories (ABT)
- Anheuser-Busch Companies (BUD)
- Avon Products (AVP)
- Berkshire Hathaway B (BRK.B)
- Cadbury Schweppes PLC ADR (CSG)
- Coca-Cola (KO)
- Dell (DELL)
- Diageo PLC ADR (DEO)
- Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB)
- Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
- Microsoft (MSFT)
- Oracle (ORCL)
- Wal-Mart (WMT)
- Washington Post Co (WP)
I already own Microsoft. Avon, Cadbury Schweppes, Diageo and the Washington Post are companies that I have been interested in researching further. The only companies that look unappealing on this list are Dell and Oracle. I don’t think Dell will have a wide moat for long and Oracle’s management concerns me. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this list.
I think Dell’s moat will remain intact.
On Microsft, most of thier stuff is cloned:
- Word from Wordperfect
- Excel from Lotus
- Xbox from Playstation
- Windows from Apple
- Internet Explorer from Netscape
- Micrsoft Money from Quicken
- MSN search from Google and Yahoo
The list doesn’t stop. I think Microsoft is too big to provide a meaningful return, MSN search has no chance at Google, Quicken is head and tails over Microsoft Money and Xbox is about even w/ the playstation.
Microsoft will be around for a long time, but it won’t grow very much during that time.
-Mike
Mike -
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your opinion. I still think that Dell will eventually go the way of IBM and HP. They are a producer of a commodity item.
Microsoft software maybe clones of other products, but their products are now the defacto business standard for many applications. The real key to their competitive advantage is the Windows operating system.
I’ve never been that impressed by Morningstar’s stock research, free or otherwise… Maybe that explains why they’re giving it away.
As an undergrad student studying towards an analyst position, the Morningstar Analyst Research has been an invaluable tool to see what a CPA looks at in a financial services company, for example.
– Towards that regard, I do not agree with their assessments for FITB. Callahan far outweights their competitive advantages and their deposit market share will not be as high as he expects due to the competitive market looking forward into ‘06. While it is a great company and an interesting stock, their are certainly better large regional bank investments out their in the financials sector.
– The same could be said for JPM as well. While it is a huge diversified financial — I love their revenue breakdown throughout business segments as well — this stock is certainly not as aggressively situated when looking at its comparables. B of A would be a better investment, IMHO.
Hi Frank -
Thanks for sharing your opinions on Morningstar’s research here. I share a very similar viewpoint on Morningstar’s reports.
The info provided on Morningstar’s research is great. I have found it very useful and also share in your viewpoints