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Which investment newsletter is better for you, Oxford Club or Motley Fool?
After subscribing to both Motley Fool and Oxford Club, let me share with you the differences between these two and help you make an informed decision.
Oxford Club Vs Motley Fool: Investment Philosophy
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommends investing in a diversified group of fundamentally strong businesses with growth potential and holding them for the long term and also a number of market index ETFs.
On the other hand, Oxford Club recommends buying and holding a group of market index ETFs for the long term (only annual rebalancing) and at the same time doing short-term and long-term targeted trading, depending on your risk tolerance level and investment horizon.
The Motley Fool investment team will look for businesses with increasing sales, high earnings growth, good operating margins, a strong market position, and low debt.
It generally recommends investors buy shares of at least 25 companies and hold them for at least 3-5 years to maximize the odds of long-term investing success.
Because it believes in allowing time for those companies to create all of the value we expect from them while ignoring the stock market volatility in the short term.
As Warren Buffett once said, “Time is the friend of the wonderful business.”
Oxford Club differs from the Motley Fool in that it recommends a number of popular index ETFs as the core portfolio and also recommends its members engage in stock trading (as shown in the so-called Oxford Club wealth pyramid).
After going through its detailed explanation of the wealth pyramid, I realized that each segment corresponds to different paid trading services.
For example, For the Ultra Short Term Targeted Trading tier, Oxford Club would recommend its “The Momentum Alert”, “Technical Pattern Profits” or “Penny Option Trader” services to you.
Personally, I find this so-called wealth pyramid confusing and complex.
My take is that its design has more to do with promoting Oxford Club’s paid trading services.
Also, I don’t like the ultra-short-term and short-term trading being recommended as part of their wealth-building plan because the majority of traders (probably more than 80% of them) lose money.
No one can predict the stock market in the short term.
It’s also very risky, especially if you are not good at risk management and money management.
Lastly, it can be very stressful (especially when there are many losing positions) and time-consuming.
Personally, I like to hold good companies for the long term and ignore short-term market volatility.
So, in terms of investment philosophy, I prefer the Motley Fool to the Oxford Club.
Motley Fool’s investment approach is sound and it has been proven to work by the market-beating returns it has achieved.
While I dislike the ultra-short-term-trading and short-term trading that was recommended by Oxford Club, I like Oxford Club’s “Gone Fishing Portfolio” which simply consists of several index ETFs (as shown below).
It’s a properly diversified long-term portfolio with only annual rebalancing required.
[Note: Actually, you can find the Gone Fishing portfolio online for free on Alexander Green’s website. In his book called “Gone Fishing Portfolio”, you can also find the exact portfolio holdings.]
Oxford Club Vs Motley Fool: Stock Recommendations & Track Record
Let’s take a look at Oxford Club’s recommended portfolios as well as the stock recommendations in its portfolios.
This “Gone Fishing Portfolio” was created in April 2003.
How has it performed so far?
It has done pretty well with all the funds generating a positive return with the highest total return being 563% and the lowest total return being 49% from April 2003 to July 2022.
Over the same period, the S&P 500 returned 354%.
Has the Gone Fishing Portfolio outperformed the S&P 500?
After averaging the returns of the funds and taking into account the allocation, the Gone Fishing Portfolio had a return of 284%.
So, you would be better off just investing in the S&P 500 ETF during this period of time.
Now, let’s take a look at stock recommendations for the “Oxford Trading Portfolio”.
These are stock picks for short-term trading opportunities.
This needs active management and it is much riskier.
For example, they gave a “Buy” recommendation in May for the stock “Under Armour” at the buy price of $11.42 with a “25% trailing stop, this stock hits the stop loss with the current price at $8.42.
That means whatever you invested in this stock, you would suffer a loss of 25%.
In April 2021, it recommended Merke & Co at the buy price of $75.97, the current stock price is at $92.78.
So, how has this trading portfolio performed?
So far this year, most of the stock recommendations have hit a 25% stop loss.
For its “Ten Baggers of Tomorrow Portfolio”, it recommends all the high-growth (i.e. high risk, high return) stocks.
So, how have the stock recommendations in this “Ten-Baggers of Tomorrow Portfolio” performed?
As of my writing today (July 2022), I can see there are six stock recommendations with three losing stock picks with a maximum loss of 52.9% and the other three winning stock picks with a maximum gain of 87.8%.
What about the Motley Fool’s track record?
Below is the performance comparison between the Motley Fool Stock Advisor and the S&P 500 between 2002 and 12th March 2024.
As of 12th March 2024, average Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations have returned over 651% since inception while the S&P 500 has returned 150%.
In short, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor has outperformed the market 3 to 1.
But, what about its individual stock picks?
Below is a table that shows you the performance of individual stock picks over the years.
As of 6th September 2023, Motley Fool Stock Advisor has had 173 stock recommendations with 100%+ returns.
[Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Individual investment results may vary. All investing involves risk of loss.]
Will the Motley Fool Stock Advisor team always be right about their stock recommendations?
No, because no one can be right about their stock picks 100% of the time.
Let me sidetrack a bit here.
If any stock picking service tells you that they have a close to 100% success rate on their stock picks and can guarantee you high investment returns, you should definitely stay away.
Even Warren Buffet has loss-making stocks in his portfolio, but he still achieves above-average returns because a few big gainers in the portfolio can make up for the under-performers.
What I like about the Motley Fool Stock Advisor is that they are very open and transparent about their bad investments.
As a member, I can see the performance of ALL its past and current stock recommendations (even for closed positions).
Some other stock-picking services that I’ve tried, don’t publish the performance of all their past and current stock recommendations, so it’s not easy for you to find out their true track record.
So, if you are thinking of getting into stock investing, I highly recommend the Motley Fool Stock Advisor because I think there are a lot of well-researched stock recommendations with long-term growth potential.
By the way, I don’t buy every single stock recommendation by Motley Fool Stock Advisor.
I mainly used Motley Fool Stock Advisor to get stock ideas because they have a track record of finding multi-baggers.
For example, it first recommended Nvidia back in 2005, then again in 2009, then again in 2017.
It first recommended The Trade Desk in 2017, and has recommended it multiple times over the years as shown below.
It first discovered Netflix back in 2003 and has recommended it multiple times over the years as shown below.
So, I like to use the Motley Fool Stock Advisor as an important source of investment ideas.
I will read their research team’s analysis and then also do my own independent research on platforms such as Stock Rover and Morningstar before I decide whether or not I want to invest in the stock.
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Oxford Club vs. Motley Fool: Pricing
If you sign up for Oxford Communique, here is what you get:
- Monthly Oxford Communiqué Issues: You’ll receive one recommendation (occasionally two) per month in the newsletter. The opportunity will most often fall into the Oxford Trading Portfolio but may occasionally fit into one of the other three portfolios.
- Weekly Portfolio Updates: You’ll also receive weekly portfolio updates on Tuesdays to keep you up to speed on any developments in the portfolios. These updates will most often feature one stock, highlighting any news or a recent earnings release, plus reiterating our investment thesis.
- Safety Switch Alerts: When a stock closes below our 25% trailing stop or its investment thesis changes, we will send out a Safety Switch Alert the next morning, letting you know to exit the stock.
- Library of Investor Reports: you have online access to ALL of the reports available in the Communiqué library
There are two pricing plans for Oxford Communique:
- Standard subscription: $129/year
- Basic subscription: $49/year (then $79/year thereafter)
So, what is the difference?
The standard subscription includes both digital and print subscriptions to Oxford Communique while the basic subscription only includes a digital subscription.
The Oxford Communique is quite affordable, but it is priced much cheaper for a reason.
Basically, most of the recommended portfolios (especially the Gone Fishing portfolio) have not changed much for many years.
So, what you are paying is the monthly trading pick.
Now, let’s look at what you get from your Motley Fool Stock Advisor subscription:
- You will receive two stock recommendations every month (one stock recommendation on the first Thursday and the other one on the third Thursday of the month). Each new stock recommendation comes with a full analysis of the opportunities and risks
- The current Top 10 Favorite Investment Opportunities are released on the second Thursday of every month
- 10 Foundational Stocks for new investors (regularly updated)
- 5 Exchange-Traded-Funds
- You will receive a real-time email notification when it’s time to sell, so you are never left wondering what to do
- You gain instant access to all past Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor recommendations
So, how much does Motley Fool Stock Advisor cost?
Usually, its annual subscription is $199.
Right now, there’s a special limited-time $89 offer* for new members for the first year when you click the link here to try it out for 30 days with a Membership-Fee-Back Guarantee. (*Billed annually. Introductory price for the first year for new members only. First-year bills at $89 and renews at $199)
So, for $89 a year- that’s just $1.60 a week – you can gain unlimited access to their library of expert stock recommendations which are carefully selected to help you grow your wealth.
Limited Time: Special $89 Stock Advisor Introductory Offer For New Members
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