Subject: File No. S7-05-00

Date:    04/06/2000 2:59 PM
     
     
     
Morningstar strongly opposes the elimination of Financial Data Schedule 
provided at the bottom of the financial documents filed by public companies. 
Morningstar currently uses FDS tags for several purposes:
1. Capture the most recent year/quarters income statement and balance sheet 
numbers electronically to store them into our database. 
2. Validate data that is being extracted from other places. 
     
In the proposed ruling it is mentioned that this data can be obtained from 
alternative data sources. We consider ourselves as one of the alternative 
sources and rely heavily on the FDS tags to streamline our data collection 
process. Since there is no other clearinghouse which collects and 
disseminates financial data, this is by far the most reliable and consistent 
way for us to capture data. 
     
We present this data in our proprietary products and on our website 
(http://www.moringstar.com), which serves the investment information needs 
of millions of investors. By eliminating FDS you would be doing a huge 
disservice to the investing public. We would be willing to discuss this 
further and share our experiences with FDS if so desired by the SEC.
     
Regards,
     
Sanjay Arya
Manager, Equity Analysis
Morningstar, Inc.