In 1984, Vita Nelson discovered that dividend reinvestment plans allow you to buy stock without going through a stockbroker. Since then, she has brought this strategic way of investing to the attention of the public and has shown smaller investors how to use these plans to implement the strategy of dollar-cost averaging.

"Since no brokerage fees are associated with the transaction in most cases," she explains, "it is economically feasible to invest a fixed, certain amount at regular intervals instead of making one large investment. This strategy reduces market risk and allows investors with limited resources to establish well-diversified portfolios."

Ms. Nelson's first job in the financial industry was as a bond trader at Granger & Co., in New York, where she made a market in municipal bonds. Now, as editor and publisher of four well-respected financial publications, she helps investors take responsibility for their own investing.

Ms. Nelson has conducted seminars, appeared on TV and radio shows, and is the author of Create and Manage Your Own Mutual Fund (Lifetime Press, 1994). She is widely quoted in the press and has been cited as a source of information for individual investors by the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Kiplinger's, and the Boston Globe, among others. Ms. Nelson is the acknowledged authority on the operations of company-sponsored dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs).

The USA Account brings the concept of DRIP investing full-circle. Now individuals can make small periodic investments in the companies of their choice without incurring punishing commission charges, whether or not a company sponsors a direct investment plan.