Briefly Noted

Portfolio Strategies
Retirement Income: Repairing the Damage to Assure the Flow
If you are living off your retirement savings and have suffered a severe portfolio loss, what is your best course of action to ensure your savings can be sustained? A new T. Rowe Price retirement income study compared various withdrawal strategies.

The First Cut
The Outcasts: Stocks Removed From the S&P 500
A starting point for investors. This issue's focus is on stocks possibly neglected due to their removal from the S&P 500 index.

Hot Links
How to Check Out a Broker On-Line
Broker information on the Web can be divided into two camps: Sites that provide disciplinary or background information about a broker or firm, and sites that provide customer evaluations of brokerage firms.

Investor Professor
Where Credit Is Due: A Look at the Ratings
There are many factors that individuals must consider when making investments in fixed-income securities. Current bond yields, current bond prices, and current as well as future interest rates all may have a big impact on the return of a fixed-income investment.

Stock Screens
Finding a Stock's "True Value" Using The Price-Earnings Relative Screen
While the price-earnings ratio is a popular measure of value, ratios are not across-the-board comparable. How do you judge a company's price-earnings ratio? One approach is to look at price-earnings relative ratios.

Offbeat Offerings
Convertible Bonds
An investor reference for products that are not your typical offerings. This issue's focus is bonds that can be converted into common stock.

AAII Model Portfolios
Good-Bye and Good Riddance: 2008 Enters Stock Market History
A performance review of the AAII Model Mutual Fund Portfolio shows the portfolio down 36.5%, as compared to -37.0% for the benchmark Vanguard Total Stock Market Index fund (VTSMX).

Broker Guide 2009
2009 Discount Broker Guide
AAII's annual survey can help you find the right broker. This year's survey covers 51 firms that refer to themselves as discount.