By the Numbers

By the Numbers

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Analyst Picks are chosen by the Morningstar fund analysts who specialize in each category. Our analysts scrutinize more than 2,000 mutual funds to come up with a handful of favorites for each category. Analysts make their selections on a variety of factors, including a fund's historical risk and return, and costs on a quantitative basis. Qualitatively, we also consider consistent strategy, experienced management, and strong stewardship. Because we recognize that different funds come with different risks, each category may contain an assortment of picks that are vastly different from each other, but they will all meet the criteria listed.

Undervalued stocks with significant competitive advantages can make attractive long-term holdings. With that in mind, we scoured our 2,000-plus stock coverage universe for high-quality stocks (those boasting wide economic moats) that are trading on the cheap (rated 4 or 5 stars by our analysts).

Our analysts award wide economic moats to companies they believe possess durable competitive advantages that are likely to confer economic profits well into the future. In addition, our analysts estimate the fair value of each stock based on in-depth fundamental analysis. When a stock trades at a suitably wide discount to our estimate, we award it 4 or 5 stars. The wider the discount, the higher the star rating, and vice versa.

New sales of variable annuities totaled $40.9 billion in the first quarter of 2008, a 12.4% decrease from fourth-quarter 2007 new sales of $46.7 billion and a 1.2% increase over first-quarter 2007 new sales of $40.4 billion. Assets under management as of March 31 dropped 5.9% to $1,389.5 billion from Dec. 31 AUM of $1,476.1 billion.

The table lists the 50 most popular equity ETFs, ranked by assets under management. A Morningstar Valuation Rating of Undervalued means the ETF is trading at a significant discount to our estimate of its intrinsic worth. A rating of Overvalued means the ETF is trading at a significant premium to our fair value estimate. We rate Fairly Valued any ETF that trades in between.

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