How to read Morningstar's fund holdings?

Question

I am trying to understand the numbers in the holdings for VEXPX (I'm not specifically interested in this fund, this is just an example) compared to SEC filings (which I guess limits the question to US based funds).

This is a screenshot from the Morningstar link as at 22/MAR/2019, just to keep the data around as it will change. I compared this to the holdings in the N-Q (only available for 31/JUL/2018) and N-CSR (dated 31/DEC/2018, first document here) filings on the SEC website for the same fund, the numbers don't seem to match. This is what I am trying to understand.

Take for instance Fortinet Inc: Morningstar lists 1,674,083 below, but I can't find the corresponding number on the SEC's site (only 1,781,873 on 31/DEC/2018). The share change (-187,780 isn't the difference between these numbers either).

Other examples match the SEC reports, but I cannot explain this particular line, which tells me I am missing something.

• Where does Morningstar gets its numbers from for the number of shares owned? (it seems more recent than the SEC)
• what does the "shares change" number mean?

Answer 1

The Shares change is the delta between "today" and the portfolio date of 12/31/2018.

The number of shares for ICON 1,219,102 with a change of zero are the same in the SEC report from 12/31/2018.

Morningstar gets updated information for the mutual fund from the mutual fund company. The SEC is just taking the information from the filing that the mutual fund is required to make every quarter. That date is the only date that the Morningstar reports will match the SEC report, but that would only be true if they submitted the report on that exact day.