AAll Journal. - periodical reviews

There is a surprisingly small amount of information for intermediate-level investors. Money magazine, by far the largest of the financial publications, is jammed with advertisements and overly optimistic advice. If you want accurate, somewhat technical information, you have to look to much smaller magazines. AAII Journal stands out as one of the few that takes no advertising and shuns trendiness.

Instead, you get about a dozen well-written articles an issue. No indoor fireworks here, although the Letters page has the best-thought-out responses to articles you will find in any magazine. Every issue has an interview with the manager of a major public fund; the Investor Workshop shows the many ways to track and value stocks; other articles are contributed by academics and financial planners.

The AAII has about 60 local chapters, which meet monthly. Although most of the benefit you will get from your subscription is in the magazine itself, the local groups provide a good forum for meeting other midlevel investors and discussing recent trends.

--Paul Hoffman

Who is a shareholder? If one chooses to make the case that directors and owners are not the true owners of the corporation and may at times make decisions that are for their benefit and not for the benefit of the shareholders, then the case against those who vote institutional shares may be much stronger. Voting shares by mutual funds may not be too much of a problem since mutual fund directors are elected by mutual fund shareholders and mutual fund investors will tend to invest with mutual funds that share their objectives.

Pension funds, however, are another matter. In many cases, those who decide how proxies held by the pension fund are voted are not elected by the beneficiaries and, in many cases -- for instance, for governmental pension funds -- are politically appointed. The thought of bureaucrats with personal agendas voting proxies is, to say the least, disturbing. Just the possibility of a pension fund controlled by political appointees bringing pressure on corporations to support a particular political philosophy is frightening.

The larger pension funds may soon have it within their power to virtually control U.S. corporations if they choose (which is not certain) and if corporate governance is completely democratized without safeguards. Such power given to public pension funds would surely bring about political struggles for control of these funds, and cause much political strife as well as endanger the retirement funds of pension beneficiaries.

AAII Journal

Maria Crawford Scott, Editor.

$49/year (10 issues) from American Association of Individual Investors, 625 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611

COPYRIGHT 1992 Point Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group