Great work/life balance only partly offsets well below average industry compensation - Equity Analyst Morningstar Employee Review

3.0
Oct 9, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Laid-back, low pressure atmosphere. Great work/life balance as most people work no more than 45-50 hours per week and casual dress code. Highly intelligent equity and credit analyst peer group. Intellectually stimulating work with significant responsibilities and opportunity to learn. Research business is growing and doing quite well.

Cons

Comp, comp, comp. Did I mention comp? Salaries are okay, but bonuses are a joke... total comp 30%-50% below industry averages for experience level. "One Morningstar" means that our group is not properly rewarded for our superior efforts and higher levels of profitability & growth. Very tight budgets mean limited resources to do job properly (research tools, research data, travel). Pay does not scale very well as one moves up in the department or company. To put it simply, Morningstar is cheap. As a result, employee turnover is relatively high.

Explore other reviews about Morningstar

5.0
Jul 13, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

good company work life balance

Cons

really no cons for the firm

4.0
Apr 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Really kind people work here, for the most part everyone I have worked with is smart and I have learned so much from them. There are great benefits: unlimited PTO, 6 week paid sabbatical is earned after 4 years of employment, 6 month maternity leave. Great location of an office. Great work life balance.

Cons

Not very competitive pay and it is easy to hit a ceiling in your career development. New HR policies are kind of strange, will not promote you unless you make enough money to be promoted which they designed the system to make it so you cannot go up. HR has also laid people off because they make too much money without considering the consequences of removing senior employees with unique/not stored intelligence vital to the company. They also hired a bunch of remote employees, then implemented a 4 day required in office rule no matter if you live states away from an office, which pushed hundreds of people to quit, not receive their bonus, and not require M* to pay them severance. It didn't use to be this way but the last year or so has been strange.

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