What Is the American Funds Investment Company of America Fund?

The American Funds Investment Company of America (AIVSX) is a large-blend stock fund. It seeks to provide a combination of growth and income to investors. The AIVSX ticker symbol denotes the fund's Class A shares, which have a maximum front-end load of 5.75%.

First offered in 1934, the Investment Company of America fund is the oldest member of the American Funds family of funds. Currently, AIVSX maintains a three-star Morningstar rating and a two-star rating over a five-year period. American Funds offers dozens of traditional mutual funds, as well as a large selection of portfolio and target funds. The portfolio and target funds are all “fund of funds,” as they invest in traditional mutual funds rather than in individual securities. American Funds is a subsidiary of Capital Group.

Investment Process

Capital Group is known for its emphasis on capital preservation and consistent long-term performance. The firm has a system that combines the benefits of individuality with teamwork. All managers and analysts assigned to a portfolio work together to research and share information about potential investments, though decisions regarding which specific investments to make are not done as a team.

Each person is given a percentage of net assets to invest as they see fit within the bounds of the portfolio’s objective. Capital Group firmly believes that this type of commitment investing creates a more stable, diversified, and better-performing portfolio.

Investment Portfolio

The American Funds Investment Company of America focuses on investing in a diverse group of large, well-established companies across the United States. It focuses exclusively on stocks and is optimized for the long-term with a focus on future income over high current yield.

AIVSX has a total asset under management (AUM) of $117 billion. It has 87.5% of its net assets invested in U.S. equities, about 7.9% in non-U.S. equities, and 4.5% in cash. As the fund's top two sectors, information technology and communication services comprise 35.8% of the fund's net assets, followed by investments in the health care and industrials sectors. AIVSX's top equity holdings as a percentage of net assets are as follows:

• Microsoft
• Facebook
• Alphabet
• Broadcom
• Comcast
• Amazon
• Netflix
• Abbott Laboratories
• Home Depot
• Philip Morris International

Of note, dividends for AIVSX are typically distributed in March, June, September, and December. Overall, the fund has a low expense ratio of 0.58%. As the name implies, the Investment Company of America primarily focuses on American holdings—91.7% are based in the U.S., to be exact.

Fund Management and Performance

AIVSX's longest-tenured managers are James Lovelace and Donald O'Neal, who each have been managing the fund for about three decades. Due to the team-based nature of fund management, they are accompanied by six other fund managers, whose tenure ranges from one year to twenty years with the Investment Company of America fund.

As of Oct. 26, 2021, AIVSX had a one-year return of 20.31%. Over a five-year period, the Investment Company of America fund returned 12.2% while over a 10-year period it had an average 13.96% return.