Name: Demystifying ESG Investing: Introducing Morningstar's ESG Commitment Level
Start: 2021-01-14T07:00:00Z
End: 2021-01-14T07:00:41.000Z
Location: BrightTALK
Rating: 4.73

Periodic webinars showcasing the latest insights into market trends & regulation from Morningstar Research. 

There’s no hiding that AI is transforming our world, and that brings new opportunities for firms to leverage technology to achieve scale. The potential benefits to firms are endless – including using generative AI to increase speed and scale. Join Morningstar’s experts as they explore the world of AI in the investment space and how to use it as a tool for your advisors to gain a competitive edge and to truly achieve scale.  

- The benefits of AI to your firm   
- How your advisors can master it to scale your business  
- How AI can seamlessly provide curated data for your clients  
- Meet MO – Morningstar’s AI chat bot  

Webinar Speakers:  
Kishore Nair, Head of Technology Enterprise Products, Morningstar 
Edward Byrne, Manager of Sales Development, Morningstar

How to use AI to unlock endless scale for your firm

Navigating the complexities of financial reporting in the asset and wealth management industry is no small feat. Firms are grappling with issues like timely delivery, regulatory compliance, and maintaining brand integrity. 

 In this webinar, we'll delve into: 

- The multifaceted challenges faced in the creation of reports and factsheets, including data aggregation, team coordination, and adherence to the SEC marketing rules. 
- Best practices for crafting compliant, engaging reports that articulate your firm's distinct value in a crowded market. 
- The drawbacks of current market solutions, which often force a choice between inflexible templates and cumbersome manual processes. 
- An overview of Morningstar’s Publishing System (MPS) as a solution that offers the flexibility and efficiency missing from today's options, enabling the creation of branded, compliance-friendly reports and factsheets that automatically update. 

This session is designed for marketing and sales professionals seeking innovative ways to streamline their reporting processes. Discover how Morningstar's Publishing System can simplify your workflow, enhance regulatory adherence, and highlight your firm's unique selling points with custom reports and factsheets generated at scale. 

Webinar Speakers:  

- Kelly Swanson, Director of Product Management, Reporting Solutions, Morningstar, Inc. 
- Lisa Antonio, SVP Business Development, Morningstar, Inc.

Efficiency Meets Flexibility: Generating Custom Reports & Factsheets at Scale

Fund fees have continued their dramatic decline for a variety of reasons.  

Join us for this focused webinar to learn about fee compression, investment trends, and what it may mean for asset managers in the future. 

In this webinar we will: 
- Expose trends in fund fees paid by investors 
- Examine the changing shape of advice 
- Explore fee competition among the largest asset managers 
- Demonstrate the analysis process using the US Fund Fee Trends Notebook in Direct

Analyzing the Constant Compression of Fund Fees

The financial recommendations you make shouldn’t feel like a gamble to your clients. Amid market, economic, and political uncertainty, they are asking tough, but important questions—and you want to ensure that your answers instill confidence and that your advice stands out.
Our research shows that top three values for building trust are the ability to demonstrate expertise, tailor advice to specific goals and needs, and align to individual risk tolerances. Learn how Morningstar can help you relieve investor anxiety and help your clients navigate the current uncertainty. Tune in to learn how to:
• Drive conversations that your clients will easily understand leveraging actionable data and insights.
• Simplify the complex with Morningstar reports and visuals that clearly articulate the value of your advice.
• Instill client confidence with our academically validated risk profiling questionnaire in Advisor Workstation.

Building Client Confidence: Handling the Trifecta of Uncertainty

The Security and Exchange Commission and FINRA are enforcing regulations that are placing a heavy cost on firms who fail to stay compliant.

Just recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that 16 firms—comprising broker-dealers, investment advisers, and dually registered entities—were being fined over $81 million for off-channel communications compliance failures. This brings the total fines levied by the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission for off-channel communications and recordkeeping issues to over $2.6 billion.

Join our exclusive discussion on: 
•A quick refresher of these regulations/anything new  
•What the SEC & FINRA are looking for from firms to consider compliant  
•What firms must understand and do to stay compliant and avoid fines  
•Going forward, what is needed for new sales & upselling to your clients

What Compliance Executives must know about the recent SEC and FINRA regulations

How did diversified portfolios hold up in 2023? In our latest study on portfolio diversification, we found that a basic 60/40 portfolio outperformed more broadly diversified portfolios, a notable shift from 2022 trends. But what are the implications of this reversal? Do the basic arguments in favor of diversification still hold true?  
 
Join Morningstar analysts Amy Arnott, Christine Benz, and Karen Zaya as they explain the factors that led to this reversal, the implications on portfolio building for your clients, and the future of portfolio diversification.

Webinar Speakers:  

Amy Arnott – Portfolio Strategist  

Christine Benz – Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning  

Karen Zaya - Manager Research Senior Analyst

Explore Portfolio Diversification Strategies with Morningstar Analysts

The current climate across our economy, society and environment has created a world of change. Learn about how Morningstar Sustainalytics can help navigate the investing implications of climate change with confidence. With Morningstar, Investors can measure and manage the climate risks and opportunities in their portfolios, implement climate-based strategies, communicate to stakeholders, comply with regulations, engage issuers and more. Explore the all-encompassing suite of Climate Solutions at Morningstar today. 

Learn more: https://www.morningstar.com/views/climate-investment-solutions

Climate Investment Solutions that Help you Manage Complexity with Confidence

Over the past year, markets have soared higher, yet returns have been concentrated in a handful of stocks. As these stocks are now fully to overvalued and momentum starts to fade, we look to contrarian plays to invest. Focus on those stocks that have underperformed and are unloved—and most importantly—undervalued. 

Learn where we see undervalued opportunities within a more than fully-valued market and how we expect the U.S. economy will play out over the course of this year. We will:

• Break down our valuations and identify undervalued opportunities across categories, sectors, and stocks. 
• Highlight investable contrarian plays. 
• Provide our forecasts for real U.S. GDP, inflation, and interest rates.

In our market outlook, we utilize a bottom-up perspective to determine market valuation. By leveraging off of the 1,500 companies covered by Morningstar's equity analysts, we identify which areas are undervalued versus which are overvalued. From growth stocks to value stocks and from small-cap to large-cap, we will identify where we see value today. Following the presentation, we take as many questions from the audience as time allows. 

Presented by:
Dave Sekera, CFA, Chief U.S. Market Strategist, Morningstar
Preston Caldwell, Chief U.S. Economist, Morningstar
Moderated by Susan Dziubinski, Investment Specialist, Morningstar

This webinar has been accepted by the CFP® Board for one continuing education (CE) credit for CFP® designations.

2024 Q2 U.S. Market Outlook: Contrarian Plays Increasingly Attractive

Discover how Advisor Workstation can help advisors streamline their daily practices by addressing common pain-points. Our journey focuses on enhancing and simplifying business processes, and we'll get insights from expert panelists, including representation from Morningstar and Asset Map. Learn how Asset Map and other strategically curated applications can save time and increase efficiency in your advisory practice. Join us for a more successful advisory experience.

Optimizing Advisor Efficiency: Streamlining Practices with Advisor Workstation

Great due diligence practices can result in strong, stand-out portfolios as well as greater client acquisition, satisfaction, and retention.

So what goes into great due diligence? In this webinar we’ll cover the trends and best practices of industry leaders. Here are some of the strategies we’ll cover: 
• Fund analysis
• Investment comparisons
• Risk assessment
• Competitive analysis
• Global trends and regulations

Webinar Speakers:
• Alexander Mandry, Senior Customer Success Manager for Direct, Morningstar, Inc.
• Katja Ballentin, Customer Success Manager for Direct, Morningstar, Inc.

Due Diligence Best Practices for Business Growth

In the world of blockchain, the next generation of investors are curious and looking to invest. Firms must have the right tools to help educate their advisors. The right education will help fulfill the evolving needs of their clients that will power business growth. 

Join our panel where Morningstar and our partner, MeetAmi, answer your most pressing questions on bitcoin and cryptocurrency, including: 

• The fundamentals and future trends of blockchain, cryptocurrency and smart contracts 
• Meeting the needs of the next generation of clients for your firm’s growth and retention and overcoming objections your firm may have 
• How to get the right education for your advisors 

Webinar Speakers:  
• Bryan Armour, Director of Passive Strategies Research, Morningstar 
• Sarah Morton, Chief Strategy Officer at MeetAmi Innovations Inc. 
• Hashim Mitha, Chief Executive Officer, MeetMeetAmi Innovations Inc. 
• Kevin Reed, Global Head of Platform Partnerships, Morningstar

Key fundamentals and trends of cryptocurrency and fueling your firm’s growth

In this webinar, Sheryl Rowling CPA/PFS shares insights on showcasing your value as an advisor and helping clients minimize tax burdens throughout the year. She will discuss real life client examples and demonstrate the power of employing tax strategies to help clients meet their goals.

Goals-based Tax Strategies for Clients

In just 13 minutes, this short but impactful session will take you on a journey through the key features that make Morningstar Office a true game-changer for your practice. From its comprehensive portfolio management tools to its advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, you'll gain valuable insights on how to harness the full potential of Morningstar Office. 

Learn how this cutting-edge tool is designed to revolutionize the way financial advisors work, helping you streamline your workflows, boost efficiency, and deliver exceptional financial advice.

Empowering Great Advice with Morningstar Office

Join Preston Caldwell, Chief U.S. Economist, for a deep dive into our U.S. economic outlook for 2024 and beyond. 

Despite initial concerns, the U.S. economy has defied expectations by experiencing accelerated GDP growth in 2023 compared to the previous year, despite significant rate hikes. In our upcoming webinar, we will discuss our forecasts for U.S. GDP, inflation, and interest rates over the next five years. We anticipate a slowdown in GDP growth starting in 2024, but expect a rebound in 2025 and beyond due to aggressive rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and a decline in inflation. Register now for all the details plus client-friendly charts to enhance your conversations!

Q1 2024 U.S. Economic Outlook: Can the economy cope with higher interest rates?

In today's rapidly evolving investment landscape, the significance of individuals’ investment in cryptoassets is crucial. This specially tailored webinar is designed to equip wealthtech platforms and wealth management firms with an understanding of why it's vital for their advisors to have insight into their client’s cryptoasset investments. Additionally, we will highlight how the ByAllAccounts wealth data ecosystem is bridging the visibility gap so advisors can view their clients’ full financial picture including cryptoassets.

We will discuss the complexities of cryptoassets, emphasizing the need for advisors to be informed about their clients' investments. This knowledge is key in offering comprehensive advice, including tax planning, estate planning, and risk assessment. We will deep dive into recent research and newly implemented regulations including new provisions in the Tax Code that require the reporting of cryptocurrency transactions.

You will gain valuable insights from Don McHenry, ByAllAccounts' Director of Product Management, Morningstar Wealth, and Tyrone Ross, CEO of Turnqey Labs. You will leave this discussion with a clear understanding of: 
• The current landscape of cryptoasset investment in the United States.
• The strategic significance of comprehensive visibility into clients’ cryptoassets for portfolio management, risk management, estate planning, and tax planning.
• How ByAllAccounts' can bridge the cryptoasset visibility gap through integrations with leading crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini, providing a unified and current view of client cryptoasset holdings.

Join us to eliminate the visibility gap in your advisors' practices, enabling them to deliver premium guidance and cultivate trust with clients that have ventured into the world of cryptoasset investments.

Bridging the Gap: Gain Visibility into Client Cryptoassets for Your Advisors

Data can be both a blessing and a curse. It can expose opportunities but only with the right tools and processes in place. 

Learn how to use Morningstar Direct’s Performance Reporting module to build custom reports at scale. Our expert speakers will share tips to help you improve your processes and expedite your reporting and due diligence efforts.  

In this discussion, you’ll learn: 
- What the Performance Reporting tool is 
- How power users are leveraging its advanced reporting capabilities 
- How to build, format, and automate a report for comprehensive-yet-clear reporting 

Webinar Speakers:  
- Ben Johnson, Head of Client Solutions, Asset Management, Morningstar, Inc. 
- Brandon Krisko, VP, Direct Sales Specialist, Morningstar, Inc. 
- Peter Kalembasa, Senior Customer Success Manager, Morningstar, Inc.

Learn to Master Custom Reporting at Scale with Morningstar Direct

Portfolio optimization is a critical challenge in asset management, demanding a fine balance between risk, return, and investor preferences.  

In this webinar, we'll explore: 
- The common challenges in portfolio construction and optimization 
- How to use mean variance optimization and factor-based optimization to enhance your portfolios 
- Relevant Jupyter Notebooks you can leverage for portfolio optimization 
- Practical demonstration of how Morningstar's Analytics Lab facilitates efficient model building and backtesting 

Join us for an insightful exploration into portfolio optimization, tailored directly for data scientists and quant analysts. Discover how to leverage Morningstar’s advanced tools to refine your investment strategies and meet the dynamic needs of today’s market. 

Webinar Speakers:  
Kumar Neelotpal Shukla, Associate Director of Quantitative Research, Morningstar, Inc. 
Sara Otterbeck, Senior Product Manager, Direct Analytics Lab, Morningstar, Inc.

Balancing Risk, Return & Preferences: Portfolio Optimization with Factor Models

As a wealthtech service provider or broker-dealer, you already know how complex and challenging it can be to cater to the growing needs of registered independent advisors (RIAs) and hybrid advisors who manage investments for their clients across multiple custodians. 

At ByAllAccounts, we've been supporting multi-custodied advisors for over 23 years, and we understand their unique requirements and challenges. We firmly believe that enabling your advisors to realize their utmost potential involves tapping into a virtually unrestricted network of advisor book of business data providers. This empowers your advisors to seamlessly view and report on all their accounts within a unified platform, ensuring your platform’s scalability, reliability, accuracy, and security remain uncompromised. 
To help you understand the importance of advisor book of business account aggregation, join our webinar, which delves deeper into the challenges faced by serving multi-custodied advisors and explores what to look for in a book of business aggregation solution.

In our webinar, you will learn:
• The data challenges faced when supporting multi-custodied advisors, such as data access and accuracy plus platform scalability.
• The key features to look for in a book of business aggregation solution, including a growing network of advisor data sources that delivers high-quality data for complex use cases (e.g., performance reporting), seamless advisor onboarding, and integrated insights. 
• The advantages of partnering with an industry expert that can provide seamless integration and customized data outputs without the need of custom development.

This webinar is key for wealthtech service providers, broker-dealers, and anyone interested in unlocking the potential of serving multi-custodied advisors.

Wealthtech Toolbox: How to Facilitate Custodial Independence for Your Advisors

Recognizing the surging interests in ESG investing, Morningstar’s global manager research team has introduced the Morningstar ESG Commitment Level – a distinctive, qualitative and analyst-driven evaluation of investment strategies and asset managers from an environmental, social, and governance perspective. 
 
The Morningstar ESG Commitment Level serves investors by:

- Define the features that our analysts believe constitute a strong ESG investment program;
- Identify those strategies and asset managers that our analysts see as best-in-class in the context of ESG investing;
- Call out strategies and asset managers that are subpar in their approaches to ESG investing;
- Monitor strategies and asset managers for changes that could materially affect their Morningstar ESG Commitment Levels
 
Join us and to hear how Morningstar evaluates the ESG capabilities of investment strategies and asset managers, and how it can help investors select the right ESG fund products

Demystifying ESG Investing: Introducing Morningstar's ESG Commitment Level

Sustainability

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Welcome to the US wealth managers community on BrightTALK. Join this community to hear industry experts share market, compliance, legal, tax and fund updates and analysis. You can also find helpful tips on financial planning, asset allocation, portfolio management and engaging and retaining high net-worth (HNW) clients.

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Demystifying ESG Investing: Introducing Morningstar's ESG Commitment Level

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