If your livelihood depended on the quality of your advice, wouldn’t you be your own best customer? Maybe not, especially if you’re a fund manager, according to a new study from Morningstar. Their analysis of SEC-required disclosure of managers’ holdings reveals some surprising numbers:

“In U.S.-stock funds, 47% report no manager ownership. And it gets worse from there. Fully 61% of foreign-stock funds have no ownership, 66% of taxable bond funds have no ownership, 71% of balanced funds put up goose eggs, and 80% of muni funds lack ownership.”

Should investors be concerned? Investment News quotes Morningstar’s Russel Kinnel:

“I don’t think it’s an accident that managers tend to avoid investing in their own funds when they are gimmicky, market-driven funds.…If the fund is designed with good fundamental characteristics for the long haul, they’re more likely to invest in it.”

Also see this report in the San Francisco Chronicle.