American Investment

American Funds is one of the nation’s oldest mutual fund companies, and has been around since 1931.

Their 30 funds have more than $900 billion in investments with funds from over 40 million shareholder accounts.

The fund in question, on the other hand, is one of the nation's oldest (since January 1, 1934) and largest mutual funds.

The fund mainly does investments in blue chip companies, which represent a wide cross section of the U.S. economy.

Some of the characteristics of the funds include low expense structure (gross) (0.56% vs. 1.19% for an average large-cap value fund as of June 2008) and good average annual total return (lifetime of the fund, with sales charge, as of May 31, 2008) of 12.58%.

The fund principally does investments in common stocks, but can also have securities in the fund that are convertible into common stocks, as well as bonds, U.S. government securities, nonconvertible preferred stocks, and cash and equivalents.