As investors become increasingly comfortable with the advantages that the Internet brings to the desktop, it’s inevitable that more and more information and services will be provided through your computer.

To help you bypass the junk and easily locate the jewels, we have updated our annual Guide to the Top Investment Web Sites. Available on-line, our annual guide will steer you to the best sites for the most common investment needs.

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Researching hundreds of sites throughout the year, our editorial staff provides you with descriptions of top investment Web sites in this year’s guide. These sites provide investment information or services that in our view is both useful and substantial to individual investors and is available either for free or at a reasonable price.

Sites are grouped by subject to help focus your search. For each major subject area, we list the top sites, give a summary description, and list the price range, if any. But the real meat of the lists is in the assessment we include: what we like about each site and what we don’t like. This will enable you to pinpoint the sites you need based on specific factors you are looking for.

The categories are relatively straightforward. For each, we explain what the subject area covers and the pertinent information investors can expect to find.

The on-line version of the guide presents the top sites with hyperlinks directly to each site along with an illustrative screen shot (click on Top Web Sites under Investor Resources on the right-hand side of our home page, as shown above). You can quickly jump to the type of sites you are interested in using the Table of Contents page or the Web Guide Links provided in the right-hand column of each page.

Brush Up on Investing Concepts

Walk through an investment tutorial in our Investor Classroom. This area provides step-by-step explanations of important investment ideas and techniques. Each week the next step of the featured course is posted.

New topics are introduced monthly and completed courses are archived for your reference. Just look for the Investor Classroom graphic header in the right-hand column throughout AAII.com (see above). You’ll see the current featured course underneath the header.

To locate our archive of courses, click on the graphic header. Topics of past Investor Classrooms include:

• First Steps to Successful Investing
• How to Use Your Computer for Investing
• Saving for Your Retirement
• Investing in Small Stocks
• Tax Strategies for Investors
• How to Judge a Stock
• Portfolio Management in Retirement
• Choosing the Best Fund for You
• How the Market Works

Learn at your own pace: Links to each step are included in case you miss a week and need to catch up. To further aid in your quick learning, each week’s segment is broken down into bite-size parts that address common investing questions.