What is the American Association of Individual Investors?

The American Association of Individual Investors refers to a nonprofit investor education organization in the United States. The organization has around 150,000 members with a focus on educating individual investors as far as financial planning, stock market portfolios, and retirement accounts are concerned.

What Does the American Association of Individual Investors Do?

The AAII helps individuals to become effective managers when it comes to their own assets through education programs, research, and information. Since the organization is not for profit, it markets itself as a neutral source of information for investment. The AAIIs mission statement is to teach its members how to effectively manage their own portfolios as they take lower than the average risk levels to beat the average of 500 returns of S&P. The AAII has generally educated more than two million investors. It has a commitment to continue helping investors to develop their investment philosophy on the basis of individual objectives. The organization is able to accomplish this by illustrating how investors can evaluate various investment vehicles and opportunities. It shows investors how they can obtain the necessary information to help them make effective decisions. The organization also provides opportunities for investors to learn and understand how different investments relate to each other.

The History of AAII

James Cloonan Ph.D. in 1978, founded AAIS based on the belief that nonprofit organization is generally designed to deliver fair (unbiased) investment advice. For the last thirty years, its members report has been in a position to report its consistent investment returns compared to those of the overall stock market. The organizations website, therefore, works on a free model where it provides information related to investment free of charge. However, it reverses most of the materials for the group, including mutual fund analysis, model portfolio, a monthly journal, and stock screeners for paying members only. Since 2003 the organization has been able to maintain two portfolios, (a mutual fund portfolio and a shadow stock portfolio) purposely for educating its members. Members of AAII can access the returns and contents of these two portfolios online. In other words, it disseminates its education resources via its website AAII.com. Generally, there has been market outperformance of site reports throughout their existence period. In fact, the organization has a high rating from the Better Business Bureau. Also, Forbes has made it part of its Best of the Web directory by noting its investment resources plethora. It has also praised the organizations stock screens, which focus on various strategies from famous investors.

The AAII Membership Benefits

Basically, AAIIs members look forward to finding valuable information that will enable them to come up with a sound framework. They search for information that will help them build their wealth as well as manage their investments. Investors who are members of AAII have distinct advantages over other related institutions when it comes to flexibility. They also have a wide range of investment opportunities, can effectively tailor their portfolio, and move fast. Other AAIIs membership benefits include and not limited to the following:

• Subscription to award-winning AAII Journal
• Access to AAII.com
• Access to Model Stock Portfolio
• Access to stock ideas
• Access to discussion boards
• Access to investor guide

Categories of AAII

AAII Dividend Investing 

It has 24,625 active paid subscribers. It identifies investment opportunities for its subscribers, where it focuses on well-financed companies. It also helps investors to build potential dividend winners portfolio. Its subscribers receive updates on a weekly basis and a PDF newsletter that provides them with in-depth education and analysis. Its subscribers also have model portfolio access of hand-picked 24 dividend-paying stocks. 

AAII Mutual Fund Newsletter 

AAII Quarterly Mutual Fund Update has 14,667 active paid subscribers who receive the newsletter on a quarterly basis. The updates from the newsletter allow them to keep track of the funds they own or they are expecting to own. They are able to see the performance status of their funds (whether the performance is better or worse) compared to other peer groups. Also, there is a grouping of funds according to the objective, to make it easy for subscribers to evaluate, compare, and edit. It gives subscribers an overview of each quarterly report and quick market behaviors synopsis. The subscribers also have access to AAII.com, referred to as AAII.com, where they can retrieve downloads and mutual fund data. 

AAII Stock Investor Pro 

AAII Stock Investor Pro has 3,247 active paid subscribers. It is a database with high screening power Published by AAII and covers all the United States traded companies. It gives its subscribers screening power and insights for carrying out research. Through this, the subscribers are able to single out the best stocks that are tolerance to risks and meet their goals. Using monthly updates as well as weekly online downloads, AAII Stock Investor Pro prepares timely and in-depth data. The data keeps prepared so that they can act in a good time when it comes to beating the market averages. 

Stock Superstars Report 

Stock Superstars Report has 5,673 active paid subscribers. It was created by the American Association of Individual Investors. It educates investors on how to establish a successful investment portfolio. It couples proven risk-reduction strategies and time-tested investment research. Subscribers also receive weekly information, as well as research. The two covers the SSR portfolio and its holdings, to ensure that the strategies make high returns and low risk a priority.

Limitations of the AAII

In most cases, AAIIs screens do not put into consideration transaction fees when calculating their percentage returns. For this reason, screen representing frequent buying as well as selling will show a higher return than what an investor will practically receive. It is, therefore, important to put into consideration the screens number of holding when judging its performance.