Morningstar – Christine Benz and John Rekenthaler

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Christine Benz joined Morningstar in 1993 and is Director of Personal Finance, a position she has held since early 2008, having. In that capacity, she writes and edits a monthly newsletter, “Practical Finance,” which advises do-it-yourself investors on every aspect of the financial-planning process. She also writes a weekly column, “Improving Your Finances,” on Morningstar.com, and was the creator of Morningstar’s “The Short Answer” column, which is geared toward investors just starting out. She is widely quoted in the media, including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and MarketWatch, and has been a frequent guest on CNBC, PBS’ Nightly Business Report, and Fox Business News.

She is author of 30-Minute Money Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Your Finances and the Morningstar Guide to Mutual Funds: 5-Star Strategies for Success and co-hosts, with Jeff Ptak, “The Long View” podcast in which they talk to influential leaders in investing, advice, and personal finance about a wide-range of topics, such as asset allocation and balancing risk and return. I had the pleasure of joining them in April 2021 for this interview.

Among Christine’s many articles, I chose this one to share titled, “Learning From My Financial Mistakes And you can learn from them, too!”

You’ll also enjoy this podcast interview with her by another of our Truth Tellers, featured in our last newsletter, Dr. Jim Dahle of White Coat Investor. It’s called, “Investing Lessons from Christine Benz of Morningstar.”

You can follow Christine on Twitter: @christine_benz

John Rekenthaler is Vice President of Research for Morningstar. He has been analyzing the role of alternative investments in portfolios over the last 15 years. His conclusion is that, in that time, “the common, cheap, and everyday solution outdid every one of Wall Street’s esoteric, expensive, and specialised responses.”

He is also a member of Investment Analysts Society of Chicago. In his past career, John held the position of President at Morningstar Investment Management LLC. He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The University of Chicago.



From John’s prolific writings, I offer this one, titled, “Nobody Likes Index Funds, Except Investors–The three-pronged attack on index providers.