CHICAGO, March 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today published its third annual Global Flows Report examining worldwide 2014 mutual fund and exchange-traded product (ETP) asset flows. At the end of 2014, global open-end and ETP assets stood at nearly $30 trillion, up from $27 trillion in 2013. Net inflows totaled a record $1.3 trillion, compared with less than $1 trillion in 2013, and global equity funds accounted for approximately one-third of these inflows, $439 billion.

"U.S. equity markets posted respectable returns in 2014, but most other global markets did not fare as well. Economic headwinds in Europe diminished returns for equity investors in that region, while the appreciation of the U.S. dollar negatively affected U.S. investors in funds domiciled in other countries," Alina Lamy, senior markets analyst for Morningstar, said. "If 2013 was the year when investors finally regained confidence in worldwide equity markets, 2014 seems to have been a year dominated by interest rates. As the search for yield becomes ever more challenging in the global fixed-income space, investors still appear to value the lower volatility of bonds. Despite extremely low yields, fixed-income funds collected $371 billion."

Highlights from Morningstar's Global Flows Report include:


    --  The United States remained the largest investable market, holding 57
        percent of the world's assets, but the European and Asian markets are
        growing at a much faster rate than the mature U.S. market.
    --  Investor preference for less expensive, passively managed index funds
        and ETPs, particularly among U.S. equity funds, is a clear trend in the
        United States, but one that does not seem to hold for cross-border,
        European, and Asian funds. In these regions, non-index funds received
        significantly higher inflows than their index counterparts in 2014. The
        passive investing trend is showing signs of catching on in Europe and
        Asia, however, even though the magnitude of overall flows is much
        smaller than in the United States.
    --  Alternative funds had the highest 2014 organic growth rate, while
        allocation funds, which offer built-in diversification across asset
        classes, continued to attract steady inflows and also saw robust organic
        growth. Commodities funds, which a few years ago were the
        fastest-growing category group, had another difficult year because of
        falling oil prices.
    --  Vanguard, the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest
        provider of ETPs globally, continued to thrive and led firm-level
        inflows in 2014, reaching almost $3 trillion in assets. It also grew its
        business on the active side, becoming the third-largest active fund
        manager in the world, with active assets of more than $900 billion at
        the end of 2014. PIMCO had outflows of $176 billion in 2014, a 26
        percent decrease in global assets.

The Morningstar Global Flows report is based on assets reported by more than 3,000 fund groups across 74 domiciles. In total, more than 89,000 fund portfolios encompassing more than 200,000 share classes are represented. Morningstar estimates net flow for mutual funds by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund and net flow for ETFs by computing the change in shares outstanding.

To view the complete report, please visit http://www.global.morningstar.com/globalflows2014. For more information about Morningstar Asset Flows, please visit http://global.morningstar.com/assetflows.

The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar and/or its content providers; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete, or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

About Morningstar, Inc.
 Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, and retirement plan providers and sponsors. Morningstar provides data on approximately 500,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 14 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries and had approximately $170 billion in assets under advisement and management as of Dec. 31, 2014. The company has operations in 27 countries.

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Media Contact:
Carling Spelhaug, + 1 312-696-6150 or carling.spelhaug@morningstar.com

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SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.