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Welcome to the Web site of the National Association of Online Investors, a unique organization dedicated to empowering both investment buyers and sellers to meet the financial goals of each.

Founded in 1997, the NAOI is the market’s premier provider of comprehensive, objective and actionable investor education to the public. Thousands of individuals have taken our online courses, read our books and/or attended our college classes. As a result, we are a major influencer on how people make investing decisions today; including the advisors they choose to work with.

The NAOI also has an unmatched knowledge of what the investing public wants and needs from the financial services industry to enable them to participate in the market with confidence and without fear. We share this valuable information with our consulting clients to enable them to offer investment products/services that will attract far more clients than they do today.

This Home Page provides an overview of how the NAOI is structured to meet the goals of both investment buyers (our students) and investment sellers (our consulting clients). Links are provided to pages on the site that provide more details for each.

click to view hevner’s cv

click to view hevner’s cv

Introductions

Hello. My name Leland Hevner. I am the President and CEO of the National Association of Online Investors (NAOI) an organization that I founded in 1997 to empower individuals to invest with confidence and with success. We do so via comprehensive education, the use of online resources and the creation of innovative investment products and methods. By combining these components that are essential to investing success, and working with both investment buyers and sellers, we are unique in the financial services industry.

We Are Both “Teachers” and “Students”

As we teach people how to invest, they also teach us. We learn from our students how they view the world of investing, how they make investing decisions and what they want / need from the financial services industry to enable them to enter the market with confidence. Our Education Division uses this information to continually update and enhance our education courses. Our Research and Development Division uses this information create new investment types and investing methods. And our Consulting Division uses this information to show investments advisors and financial organizations how to create and offer a full range of investment products and methods that will attract more client and increase revenues.

The Organization Chart and the Evolution of the NAOI

The diagram below shows the current organization chart of the NAOI. It has grown and evolved over the course of the past 20+ years to meet the goals of our Mission Statement as described above. We have come a long way from offering a simple personal investing course in 1997.

 
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The purpose of the Divisions shown in the above chart is described below on this page. Each is critical to empowering our students and the pubic in general to invest with confidence, with success and without fear. Links are included in these descriptions to areas of this Web site where more detailed information for each is found.

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The NAOI Education Division

A major problem with investing today is that nowhere in academia, at any level, are individuals taught how to successfully participate in equity markets. They may be taught how investing works, but they are NOT taught how to navigate this complex field in order to increase their wealth and avoid significant losses. Therefore, most people see little option but to entrust their financial futures to investment advisors, who are also salespeople, and hope for the best.

The NAOI solves this problem by offering to the public comprehensive, objective and actionable investor education. The “NAOI Individual Investor Certification Program” that includes the courses pictured below, is the gold standard for investor education today. For more information related to NAOI education go to this link.

the naoi individual investor CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

the naoi individual investor CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

While not all individual investors need the level of education provided by the above Certification Program, any advisor or financial organization that offers at least a basic investor education course, customized by the NAOI to highlight the use of their products, will gain a massive competitive advantage in today’s market. More information on this topic is found at this link.

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The Investor-Market Research Division

The purpose of this Division is to listen to and learn from our students who represent a broad cross-section of the investing public. By doing so we have gained an unmatched understanding of how they view the investing world, their expectations and their greatest fears. We also know the factors that individuals consider when making investing decisions including the advisors and financial organizations they choose to work with.

This incredibly valuable information is used by three NAOI Divisions. It is used by our Education Division to enhance our education course content. It is used by our R&D Division to create innovative investment products and investing methods that better meet the wants/needs of the public. And it is used by our Consulting Division to show financial advisors and financial how to attract far more clients than they do today.

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The NAOI Financial Planning Center

The NAOI’s recognizes that Financial Planning is a critical element of wealth creation. As a result, we have created a Financial Planning Center as a part of our Education Division. In this area we provide students with a set of online, interactive financial planning calculators and worksheets that enable them to document their financial profile, set investing goals and take the actions needed to reach their goals.

These proprietary NAOI calculators and worksheets can be accessed for free on this site and are also available for licensing and branding by third parties. They can be found at this link.

The NAOI is changing how investing works at a fundamental level

The NAOI is changing how investing works at a fundamental level

The NAOI Research and Development Division

For over a decade after our founding in 1997 we took for granted that the only way to build investment portfolios was via the use of a portfolio design and management methodology called Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). Introduced to the market in the 1950’s, this approach dictates that portfolios be designed to match the risk tolerance of each investor and then held for the long-tern, through all economic conditions. A major goal of our education content, therefore, was to teach MPT methods to the investing public. As time passed, however, we found that this thinking was wrong.

Following the market crash of 2008-2009, when the MPT portfolios we had taught our students to create lost significant value, we had to face the harsh reality that static, buy-and-hold, MPT portfolios simply could not cope with modern volatile markets.

With this realization we opened the NAOI Research and Development Division to create innovative investing methods and investment types that better enable individuals to take advantage of the wealth creation potential of modern markets. It became clear to us that more then education was needed to empower investors; also needed was innovation. More information is found at this link.

click to view the table of contents

The Introduction of Dynamic Investment Theory and Dynamic Investments

The most recent development from the NAOI R&D division is the creation of an alternative approach to MPT for designing and managing portfolios called Dynamic Investment Theory (DIT). This theory sets the logic and the rules for the creation an innovative investment type called Dynamic Investments (DIs) that are capable of changing the ETFs they hold based on a periodic sampling of market trends.

By being “market-sensitive”, extensive testing shows that DIs are capable of producing significantly higher returns with lower risk than virtually any ETF, Mutual Fund or MPT portfolio being offered today. And they provide investors with absolute protection from market crashes - a critical element of investor empowerment.

The NAOI is currently teaching the use of Dynamic Investments in our education courses using the “DI Users-Manual” shown above, at right. NAOI students who have learned about DIT and DIs tell us that this is finally the approach to investing that will enable them, and thousands like them, to enter the market with confidence and without fear. You can learn more about the DIT approach to investing starting at this link. And the User’s Manual can be purchased in the NAOI Store.

click to view the table of contents

The NAOI Consulting Division

The NAOI Consulting Division was created to share our education content, investor research data and new investing products/methods with the financial services industry.

Via an NAOI Consulting Agreement we show financial professionals how to create and offer investing products and methods that better meet the needs of the investing public than those being offered today. And, by doing so, to expand their client base, increase revenues and gain a massive competitive advantage in a very crowded field. For more information related to NAOI Consulting go to this link.

As a part of our consulting efforts. the NAOI has created the Research Report entitled ““The Power of ETF Combinations” pictured nearby. It shows how DIT and DIs, discussed just above, work and how advisors and financial organizations can use this new approach to create superior products and attract far more clients than they do today. We are currently making pre-release access to this seminal Research Report to a select group of financial professionals and financial organizations that we believe will benefit most from learning about this 21st Century approach to investing first. To be considered for pre-release access to the Research Report go to this link.

NAOI Partnerships

The NAOI offers Partnerships to financial organizations that share our passion for empowering individuals to invest with confidence and success.

Based on 20+ years of working with the investing public we have gained a sterling reputation as a strong advocate for the individual investor. A Partnership with the NAOI will elevate any organization’s “trust-factor” with the investing public. This is a significant competitive advantage in a field where a recent CFA Institute survey showed that only 23% of individual investors trust their financial advisor.

We also offer Research and Development Partnerships that enable organizations to work with the NAOI to create new products in conjunction with our development team.

More information related to NAOI Partnerships is found at this link.

NAOI Advisory Contracts

NAOI President Leland Hevner is available to join company Advisory Boards to ensure that the voice of the individual investor is heard and taken into consideration in a financial organization’s strategic planning process. Hevner’s CV is found at this link.

The True Evolution of Investing

The NAOI is building a better future of investing

Many organizations today are attempting to “evolve” the world of investing to meet the challenges of modern markets via a variety of fintech methods. And the NAOI sees much value in these efforts. But our experience in working with the investing public tells us that average investors have little interest in them.

The NAOI believes that true investing evolution comes only from changing how investing works at a fundamental level. And this means challenging the use of Modern Portfolio Theory as the only way to create and manage portfolios. The NAOI is doing just this with the introduction of Dynamic Investment Theory (DIT) as discussed above.

With the introduction of DIT we have stepped out of the “MPT box” and opened the doors to a vast and virgin world of new and more effective investment products, methods and wealth solutions. And we are working on other evolutionary changes as well, including developing a more effective definition of “investment risk” that will have a major disruptive impact on the future of investing.

No organization today is more effectively organized and positioned to define a better future of investing, and then make it happen, than the NAOI.

Let’s Talk

There is absolutely no simpler, easier, quicker or more cost effective way for a financial organization to expand its product line with superior products, capture more clients and increase revenues than by working with the NAOI. We are the “missing link” needed for the financial world to profitably connect with the investing public.

Feel free to contact NAOI President, Leland Hevner directly at LHevner@naoi.org, or on LinkedIn to learn more about how we can work together to make this happen.

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The Future of Investing Starts Here” is a registered trademark of Leland Hevner and the NAOI.