Morningstar’s mission is to empower individuals (from beginners to advanced professional investors) to reach their investment goals through knowledge attainment and application. With that in mind, the Morningstar “Investment Research Center” was created for libraries. Once again, Harris County steps up to provide library cardholders with the good stuff!
Learning
For those ready to jumpstart or refresh their knowledge of the investing world, there is much to explore. The array of self-paced and time-specific learning opportunities includes online classes, live webinars, financial tutorials, analyst reports, stock screening tools, current financial news, college cost calculators, retirement investing tools, Morningstar Podcasts, articles, videos, and yes, loads more.
Specifically, in the tools section, the “Investing Classroom,” had me focused like a laser - anything with a label that makes me think I’m going to learn something valuable will get me clicking for more information. It is there that I found hundreds of courses to delve into.
Investing Classroom
If this classroom was the only thing Morningstar had to offer, I would be satisfied. Courses fall under nine blocks - click into any of these that spark an interest. I chose the Retirement block and then found that courses are broken down into five levels. Being at level one on that topic, I see sub-categories like "Social Security," and “Introduction to Medicare.” We could all learn a bit more about those head-spinners. This is a good starting point and I can only hope to build up through the 5 levels of expertise. (Taking a peak at level 5, I see there are courses on Annuities).
Quality Stock Research by Professionals
Find quality research on stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Subscribe to newsletters – they come out monthly in four areas “StockInvestor,” “DividendInvestor,” ETFInvestor,” and “FundInvestor.”
Exploring Investment News Coverage
Clicking on the tab “Morningstar Insights” takes readers to the latest articles and videos. For example "Beware of the ESG Risks in These 8 AI Companies." If you have a particular topic in mind, use the search bar at the upper right. I typed Elon Musk in the search bar, then clicked "Articles & Videos." This resulted in 29 pages to narrow down so at that point, I decided to display results by "Newest Date," however there are other display options to choose from.
Get up and running
Ready to get started? Pull out your library card and link to the resource here or start at our homepage www.hcpl.net; From there, click on the dropdown menu “Online Resources,” then click the “A-Z Resources," and finally, click the "M” where the resource will be located alphabetically.
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