Type Non-profit Founded 1978 | Founder Dr. James Cloonan, PhD | |
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Key people John Bajkowski (president) Headquarters Chicago, Illinois, United States Similar American Academy of Forensi, American Association of Univer, Australian Age of Dinosaurs, CFA Institute, Ann Arbor District Library | ||
The American Association of Individual Investors is a nonprofit organization with about 150,000 members whose purpose is to educate individual investors regarding stock market portolios, financial planning, and retirement accounts. AAII “assists individuals in becoming effective managers of their own assets through programs of education, information and research.” The organization markets itself as an unbiased source of investment information because of its not-for-profit status.
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The organization was founded by James Cloonan, Ph.D. in 1978. Over the last thirty years, AAII’s members report “investment returns that are consistently higher than those of the stock market as a whole” (using the S&P 500 as reference). Since 2003, AAII has maintained two real portfolios—a shadow stock portfolio and a mutual fund portfolio – for education purposes. These portfolios’ returns and contents are available online and, the site reports, have outperformed the market considerably over the course of their existence.
Membership
AAII.com is the organization's main outlet for their educational materials. While it does offer some completely free information, requiring no registration or membership dues, a large portion of the site requires free registration or membership. AAII's best and premium content is made available only to members, who pay fees starting at $29 a year. For this fee, they receive the AAII Journal (the organization's monthly ad-free magazine), access to the organization's model portfolios, techniques for screening stocks, free investment courses, and other benefits. For members interested in using their computers as an investment resource, AAII offers the Computerized Investing journal and microsite for an additional annual fee.
Mentions
Local chapters
Many of AAII's members have created local chapters which meet from time to time to listen to speakers and discuss investment. AAII has a page on their website which lists all of these events, organized by city.