Chicago-based Morningstar is to apply its five-star rating system to the hedge fund market roll out hedge fund research by the end of the y...

Chicago-based Morningstar is to apply its five-star rating system to the hedge fund market roll out hedge fund research by the end of the year. Morningstar already has qualitative information on 3,000 of the estimated 8,000 hedge funds currently in existence, according to chief executive officer Joe Mansueto.

Although Morningstar do not have a solid plan as to how to gather this information Mr Mansueto expects that as the hedge fund industry becomes more competitive, investors will be able to force fund managers to be more open.

Morningstar has also hired investment analysts to interview hedge fund managers.