Lipper is a financial research firm founded in 1973 and owned by Thomson Reuters. Lipper tracks the performance of over 213,000 share classes and more than 117,000 funds located in sixty countries. Lipper ranks various funds on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best) on a variety of criteria important to investors related to the funds’ performance and expenses, carefully comparing funds to their peers. This gives potential investors in these funds added perspective and the means to wade through and compare similar investment choices in an unbiased fashion. When possible, funds are ranked based upon three-, five-, and ten-year performance. Lipper also tracks the performance of various indexes and sectors.