Briefly Noted

Mutual Funds
Tailoring Your Allocation to the Stage You're In With Life Cycle Funds
Life cycle mutual funds are designed to make the asset allocation decision easy - one fund for one individual based on their stage in life. But nothing is ever easy. What do you need to know about life cycle mutual funds? A look at what 401(k) investors need to know.

Mutual Funds
Allocation Over Time: Life Cycle Mutual Funds
Mutual Funds: Life cycle mutual funds are designed to make investing easier by providing an all-in-one lifetime asset allocation package. But the selection process is more complex than it sounds. A comparison of the packages.

Portfolio Strategies
Insured Investment Products: The Reality Behind the Hype
Portfolio Strategies: Insured products promise the upside of a speculative asset, while attempting to limit the downside risk. But can these products deliver--and are they useful additions to an investor's portfolio?

Hot Links
Web Sites for Economic Data
Hot Links: What you can find at the Federal Reserve Board Web site and other on-line sources for economic statistics.

Stock Screens
Screening for Value Using the Fundamental Rule of Thumb
AAII Stock Screens: The Fundamental Rule of Thumb screen combines earnings yield, dividend yield, and the ratio of earnings retained to book value to produce a score that can help indicate if a stock merits further analysis.

Stock Strategies
Managing Risk: The Dividend Payoff
Stock Strategies: Recent history suggests that an investment strategy focused on dividend-paying large-cap and mid-cap stocks can offer a perfect blend of maximum returns at a below-market level of risk.

Insurance Products
No-Lapse Premium Guarantee Policies: The Risks Revealed
Insurance Products: Companies selling no-lapse premium guarantee life insurance policies may have additional solvency risks—a vital consideration if you are considering them as a new or replacement policy.

Departments
Briefly Noted
Current news items of interest to individual investors.

Departments
Letters to the Editor
Member questions and comments on recent AAII Journal articles.

Stock Strategies
Do Elections Sway the Markets? Watch the Fed Instead
The 2004 presidential election is over, but the outcome may not matter—at least to the markets. Two new studies suggest that you should instead focus on Fed policy for clues on which way the markets may be heading.

Stock Strategies
Do Elections Sway the Markets? Watch the Fed Instead
The 2004 presidential election is over, but the outcome may not matter—at least to the markets. Two new studies suggest that you should instead focus on Fed policy for clues on which way the markets may be heading.

Departments
AAII Journal 2004 Index of Articles
An index of all articles appearing in the AAII Journal during 2004.