Several months ago, I highlighted some of the changes we made to AAII.com that will help members interested in investing in individual stocks, and I wanted to give you an update on our progress. Recently we launched a new service, A+ Investor, a suite of analytical tools and resources. In addition, we continue to revise and build out AAII.com to enhance the value for all AAII members.

My Portfolio

The cornerstone of the site enhancements is the new My Portfolio, a home-grown portfolio tracking and analysis tool designed to help you keep track of each investment’s attractiveness and to analyze your overall portfolio at a glance. It helps you determine whether each investment is still worth holding onto and whether your total allocation is appropriate for the type of investor you are. My Portfolio combines individual security analysis with portfolio analytics to help you make better decisions.

Creating your portfolio is easy. Simply go to the top of any page on AAII.com and click on the My Portfolio box. It’s located right above the AAII logo.

We have created a User’s Guide to walk you through the steps to set up your portfolio(s) in My Portfolio as well as use the powerful portfolio analysis tools that come with it. It is available here: https://www.aaii.com/myportfolio/userguide.

Eventually, My Portfolio will fully replace the third-party tool we have provided to members for the last several years. However, you can still access portfolios created with that tool by going to https://www.aaii.com/myportfolio/legacy. The legacy portfolio tracker will be available through the end of March. Until then, members can still use it, but we strongly encourage you to set up your portfolio(s) in the new My Portfolio tool. We are not able to transfer the portfolios you are currently tracking into the new tool; however, it has more functionality and data than the previous service.

Stocks Area of AAII.com

We continue to enhance the Stocks area of AAII.com (formerly Stock Ideas), which you can access at https://www.aaii.com/stockideas.

There you will find a “Featured Stock Strategy” that rotates daily, with the latest passing companies as of the previous trading day along with commentary discussing the approach. Five companies currently passing the featured strategy are listed on the page, with a link to see all the latest passing companies. Clicking on any of the tickers will take you to a snapshot analysis page for that company, while clicking on the yellow “+ sign next to any ticker will add that company to a portfolio of yours within My Portfolio for future tracking.

Stock Evaluator

Members also have access to company snapshot reports, charts and news via the new Stock Evaluator pages. To access a Stock Evaluator data sheet for any of the 6,100 stocks in the universe, type in a company name or ticker in the search box at the top-left of the AAII website and when it appears via the autofill drop-down list, click on the company name:

The Snapshot tab provides select price, share statistics and fundamental data for the company, as well as comparative industry and stock universe data. In addition, at the bottom of the Snapshot page, you can see whether the stock passes any of AAII’s 60-plus stock screening strategies.

AAII members have full access to the monthly passing company lists for all AAII stock screening approaches. At the Stocks area, the stock ideas are broken down by guru strategies or factor-based approaches. Selecting a given strategy will show you its performance since 1998, the latest passing companies through the previous month end and an article describing the screening methodology.

To further bolster the stock ideas we provide our members, we now highlight stocks from AAII’s Model Shadow Stock Portfolio as well as our premium portfolios: AAII Dividend Investing, Stock Superstars Report and VMQ Stocks on the main Stocks page. Even if you don’t subscribe to any of our stock newsletters, you see a daily update of the stocks that currently meet the initial screening criteria used for inclusion in the real-world tracking portfolios. Note that these Top Stocks may not be in the actual tracking portfolios and may never be added to them, but they meet the criteria used when making additions to these portfolios.

Stock Grades Upgrades/Downgrades

New to AAII.com are Stock Grades for the entire 6,100-stock universe. The new A+ Stock Grades system is a grading tool based on percentile rankings of multiple key metrics within five investment factors: Value, Growth, Momentum, EPS Revisions and Quality. They represent a summary of a company’s fundamentals and give you a quick overview of how a stock rates based on five investment factors that have been shown to produce market-beating results.

As an AAII member, you can access a listing of stock upgrades and downgrades based on these new Stock Grades: https://www.aaii.com/stockideas/updownexpand. Each day we compile a listing of those stocks that have seen at least two upgrades or two downgrades to any of the five investment factor grades compared to the previous trading day.

There are separate tabs for upgrades, downgrades as well as any stocks that you are tracking in My Portfolio.

We will continue to enhance AAII.com in the coming months and will communicate these changes through emails such as this as well as the AAII Journal. I am anxious to hear your thoughts on these changes. Feel free to reach out to me via email at wayne@aaii.com. It is through your feedback that we can make the site better for you.

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