The Benefits of Investing for the Long Term: BetterInvesting Top 100 Index Grows by 21 Percent Annually for 5 Years

MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich., Jan. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Through Dec. 31, the BetterInvesting Top 100 Index (BIXX) increased by 21 percent annually for the previous five years, versus 23.3 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500 Equal-Weight Index (based on a total return for both indexes in which dividends are reinvested). For the month of December, BIXX grew by 1.8 percent, compared with a 2.9 percent increase for the S&P 500 EWI.

BIXX's total return index ended 2013 at 290.20, versus 111.98 five years ago. The index stood at 284.93 at the end of November.

The BetterInvesting Top 100 Index comprises the most popular holdings of investment clubs, employing annual data from the myICLUB.com online club accounting program. The NASDAQ OMX Group manages the index, which began on April 9, 2007, at a base value of 150. BIXX is equal-weighted, meaning that each component has a weighting of 1 percent.

BIXX reflects actual portfolio decisions by individual investors in investment clubs, while other indexes are weighted heavily toward decisions by large institutional investors. BetterInvesting's individual members and investment clubs tend to have a longer-term focus than do institutions, with clubs' average holding period for stocks at 2.7 years, according to myICLUB.com data.

In December, the most common stocks acquired by investment clubs that subscribe to myICLUB, in terms of number of clubs buying, were:

1) Visa (V)
2) Qualcomm (QCOM)
3) Apple (AAPL)

BIXX includes companies of all sizes, from small firms such as 3D Systems to the world's largest, including Apple. To see the top 100 companies held by BetterInvesting members, go to the BetterInvesting website at www.betterinvesting.org.

To track the performance of BIXX, go to the NASDAQ site: www.nasdaq.com/symbol/bixx/stock-chart. The total return index symbol is BIXR.

About BetterInvesting

BetterInvesting is a national nonprofit organization that has been empowering individual investors since 1951. Founded in Detroit, the association (formerly known as National Association of Investors Corporation) was borne out of the conviction that anyone can become a successful long-term investor by following commonsense investing practices. BetterInvesting has helped more than 5 million people become better, more informed investors by providing webinars, in-person events, easy-to-use online tools for analyzing stocks and mutual funds, a monthly magazine and a community of volunteers and like-minded investors. For more information about BetterInvesting, visit its website at www.betterinvesting.org or call toll free (877) 275-6242.

About ICLUBcentral
ICLUBcentral Inc. develops powerful, commonsense tools for investment clubs and independent investors, including software products such as Toolkit 6, the StockCentral.com Web investing portal, the myICLUB.com club accounting service, MyStockProspector stock screen program and the market-beating Investor Advisory Service newsletter. ICLUBcentral, a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of nonprofit investment education association BetterInvesting, has remained true to BetterInvesting's fundamental investing principles while serving millions of individual investors striving for financial freedom. For more information, visit www.iclub.com.

SOURCE BetterInvesting

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