New Morningstar Tool For Investors

Morningstar Inc. has introduced a new graphical tool–the Ownership Zone–that gives investors a more complete picture of a mutual fund‚s holdings.

Morningstar derives a mutual fund‚s Ownership Zone by plotting each stock in the fund‚s portfolio within Morningstar‚s Style Box. The area in which most of the holdings fall is shaded to provide an intuitive representation of the area of the market in which the fund invests. A red dot in the middle of the Ownership Zone represents the weighted-average of all the fund‚s holdings.

"Many investors think they are building well-diversified portfolios, but they don‚t realize that two funds that appear to be similar in style or size may in fact hold very different securities with different risk characteristics," says Don Phillips, Morningstar‚s managing director.

"Morningstar‚s new Ownership Zone makes the popular Style Box significantly more useful for building diversified portfolios because it immediately depicts the style differences between two funds in the same box," said Harold Evensky, a certified financial planner and chairman of Evensky, Brown & Katz.

Ownership Zones are being launched through Morningstar Advisor Workstation, which offers online investment planning tools; Morningstar Principia, an investment research and management software program; and MorningstarAdvisor.com, the firm‚s Web site for financial advisors.

Pioneer Introduces Fund

Pioneer Funds of Boston has launched a protected principal fund.

The Pioneer Protected Principal Plus Fund II offers investors a guaranteed amount equal to their net investment, plus a minimum cumulative increase of 14% on Class A shares and 8.75% on Class B and C shares, provided they remain fully invested for seven years and reinvest all dividends and distributions.

The fund will invest in U.S. fixed-income securities, as well as equities. Investors can place initial orders through the National Securities Clearing Corp. to purchase the fund from now until May 30. The seven-year guarantee period runs from June 4, 2003, to June 4, 2010. After that, the fund will pursue long-term growth through an all-equity strategy and additional shares may be purchased. Advisors seeking more information may request a prospectus from their investment representative or by calling Pioneer at (800) 225-6292.

Firm Joins Triad Advisors

Mark Robare, Jack Jones and Carol Hearn, who form The Robare Group in Houston recently affiliated with broker-dealer Triad Advisors Inc. in Atlanta.

Robare Group, an independent financial advisory firm, manages approximately $200 million in client assets. Triad Advisors, a privately held independent broker-dealer, RIA and insurance agency, serves 250 independent financial professionals throughout the country.

For more information on Triad, visit www.triad-advisors.com or call (800) 720-4003.

LPL Search Tool

LPL Financial Services of San Diego has introduced a "natural language" search tool on its extranet.

The search tool allows LPL representatives to type in a question and access information from more than 6,000 pages of content. The company says natural language search tools deliver higher accuracy and relevancy than a normal keyword search engine. For additional information about LPL Financial Services, visit www.trueindependence.com or call (888) 564-6575, ext. 6555.

529 Plan Foundation

Several mutual fund companies have organized the College Savings Foundation (CSF) to focus on building public awareness and providing public policy support for 529 plans.

Founding members of CSF, which is a Washington-based not-for-profit corporation, include AIM Investments, Fidelity Investments, Franklin Templeton, Manulife Financial, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Strong Financial and T. Rowe Price.

Index Options Created

The Susquehanna Investment Group, in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., has created its first two index options and has licensed them to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. The Susquehanna Investment Managers index and the Susquehanna Electronic Gaming Index are going through the approval process at the exchange.