THE AAII JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE
COVER ARTICLE
The Individual Investor's Guide to the Top ETFs 2025
Large growth, technology and digital assets ETFs topped the list in a year where most ETFs turned in positive performance.
Features
in ETFs and Mutual Funds,AAII How-To
Choosing the Right Mutual Fund or ETF for You
Suggestions and tools to help you identify the perfect fund for your portfolio.
in Guide,Mutual Funds
The Individual Investor's Guide to the Top Mutual Funds 2025
Investors were rewarded with gains from most categories in 2024, with growth and technology funds realizing the biggest returns.
Notes & Opinions
in Editor's Note
The Great Fund Shift: Why Mutual Funds Are Losing Ground
Mutual fund net flows have been negative each year for the past 10 years, while the number of ETFs keeps expanding.
in Dispatches,Asset Allocation,AAII Asset Allocation Models
Returns for Asset Class Groups: Big Back-to-Back Gains for Large-Cap Stocks
For the first time in nearly a quarter of a century, large-cap stocks rose by more than 20% during each of the last two years.
in Dispatches,Retirement Planning,Advisers
Adviser Communication Gaps Can Lead to Inadequate Retirement Preparation
A research study reveals a disconnect between financial advisers and their clients on whether important retirement discussions are held.
in Dispatches,Stock Strategies
The Challenges of Discounted Cash Flow and How to Handle Them
Discounted cash flow (DCF) models provide a structured framework for valuing investments, but their reliability is often compromised by their dependence on uncertain long-term projections and assumptions about the future.
in AAII Community,Stock Strategies
Beer, Chips and Bull Markets: Game Day Stock Effect
While companies often see a spike in brand awareness and sales after a successful ad, translating that into sustainable stock growth is another story.
The AAII Journal, a leading investment publication, provides readers with a continuing stream of insights and ideas that focus on how you can improve your investment results. Unlike many investment magazines, ours is completely unbiased, educational and contains no advertising.
AAII has published this prestigious financial journal every month for more than 40 years. Members receive it for free and have access to thousands of evergreen articles online so they can reference information and strategies for previous market situations with a few clicks of the mouse.
Our stock journal helps individual investors manage their portfolios, build sound investment strategies and navigate all types of financial conditions. Articles range from optimizing target-date fund portfolios to retirement account withdrawal strategies and analysis on robo-advisor performance.
The magazine also has recurring features our members find invaluable. Every quarter, we dissect our model stock portfolio and provide updates to its holdings and performance. This analysis helps individual investors manage small-cap value investments.
We also offer an annual tax guide in our financial magazine. This detailed investment magazine issue covers many details that individual investors need to consider when filing their taxes. It keeps readers updated on any recent changes to tax laws and provisions and provides a handy guide to tax implications of personal investments to cut through any tax filing confusion.
Another annual feature covers ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and mutual funds. This edition helps individual investors understand what to look for when investing in funds. Online, we accompany those articles with sortable tables so that members have an interactive component to their investment research. This helps individual investors plan their portfolios and invest with confidence.
Other regular features in the AAII Journal include financial planning, stock ideas and investor professor. Financial planning articles walk investors through the process and difficulties of crafting strategies for creating wealth regardless of age. They also cover difficult situations, such as estate planning, and helpful advice for getting kids and grandchildren interested in investing.
Stock ideas, as the name implies, give readers a peek at new screens and the stocks that pass them. This part of our investing magazine helps readers identify new opportunities in the markets, flagged by a mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Because we all, as investors, need ideas, this remains one of the most popular categories.
Investor professor helps readers invest with knowledge and confidence. It deals with contingencies, such as “What happens to your investment if a company goes bankrupt?” and gives actionable advice on what resources you should use when considering a new broker. Our readers enjoy this section because of its practicality and enduring tips.
Frequent internal contributors include president John Bajkowski; AAII Journal editor and vice president Charles Rotblut; Stock Superstars Report lead analyst Wayne A. Thorp; and Dividend Investing editor Derek Hageman. Together, these internal contributors have nearly a century of market wisdom and research, which they share with clear and concise prose to help individual investors improve their knowledge and portfolios.
The AAII Journal also includes frequent guest contributions from the financial and economic space. Articles from outside industry experts differentiate our financial magazine from others and provide additional points of view for our readers. Previous guest authors have included John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard; Jay Clayton, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; Charles Schwab; and Nobel laureate and Yale professor Robert Shiller.
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