A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[The Grabber]

Hi Will.
Didn't realize you were across the pond.

It will be interesting to see how my settings work in practice.
8% Sell SAFE and 0%Buy SAFE for a very steady mutual fund.

Looks to me like you're intent on net accumulation. All well and good as far as that goes. But AIM by itself tends to accumulate even with balanced Safe settings. Especially with a 'Steady Eddie' mutual fund. So I would caution that you should expect relatively frequent Buys and could likely put your Cash Reserve at risk without some type of 'Pump the Brakes' methodology such as 30 days between sequential buys, or Tom's 'Halfway to the Wall' method of protecting Cash Reserve.

I wonder if there has been any software developed to optimise the settings based on a backtest?

Oh Yes!
Mark Hing out of Vancouver introduced us to Automatic Investor back in 2000 at our AIM gathering in Vegas. He quickly built an actual business with his suite of software!
He also has an active A.I.M. board out here.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/Advanced-Automatic-Investor-1172

Also, 2 other fellows from back then (names escape me at the moment) from Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, Florida developed a pretty big business with their version of AIM.
Both of the software packages had some types of optimization built in.

Has anyone suggested volatility as a filter to select stocks / funds?

Absolutely. Hard to find really high Vix in mutual funds or ETFs unless you use leveraged ones.
But that can be a double edge sword because there is always a reason that a stock or fund is relatively volatile. Sometimes OK, sometimes not.
Definition from Google: Volatility is how much and how quickly prices move over a given span of time. In the stock market, increased volatility is often a sign of fear and uncertainty.

Finally, if you want to study AIM in depth, start here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120830055133id_/http://www.aim-users.com/index.html
The FAQS section is very informative,, and you may find most of your questions already covered.