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These reclassifications did not have any impact on the order of our top five products in 2009 or 2008. 

<img src='content_image/260022.jpg'>

## Retention and Renewal Rates 

As discussed in How We Evaluate Our Business , we calculate reten- tion and renewal rates to help measure how successful we’ve been in maintaining existing business for products and services that have renewable revenue. The following graph illustrates these two met- rics over the past five years: 

## Retention and Renewal Rates 

<img src='content_image/260023.jpg'>

For contract-based products and services (such as Licensed Data, Investment Consulting, Morningstar Direct, and Morningstar Advisor Workstation), we estimate that our weighted average renewal rate was between 90% and 95% and increased about 13 percentage points from 2009. The 2009 renewal rate was depressed partly because of the end of the Global Analyst Research Settlement period. Excluding this factor, the 2010 renewal rate rose about 6 percentage points. This improvement reflects higher renewal rates for many product lines, including Licensed Data, Investment Consulting, insti- tutional software, and advisor software. The figure for contract- based products includes the effect of price changes and changes to the contract value upon renewal, as well as changes in the value of variable-fee contracts. 

In 2010, we estimate that our retention rate for subscription-based products, such as Principia, Morningstar.com Premium Membership service, and print and online newsletters, was on the higher end of the range between 65% and 70%, up from 55% to 60% in 2009. The change mainly reflects improved retention rates for individual software and Principia. 

## Consolidated Operating Expense 

<img src='content_image/260021.jpg'>

