Is Oxford Communique Worth It? [2024]

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Is the Oxford Communique newsletter really worth it?

Can it really help you make good investment decisions and grow your investment portfolio?

On its website, its marketing message sure catches my attention.

There is this video called ” The Single-Stock Retirement Play: Here’s Why This $4 Stock Should be the Cornerstone of Your Portfolio” (you could also read the transcriptions if you don’t have time for the video),  I became very curious to find out what this $4 stock is.

I mean, who doesn’t like the idea of turning $1000 into millions in 10 to 20 years, right?

So, I decided to subscribe to the oxford communique and see if it’s a good fit for me.

In this review, I am going to share with you my experience of trying out the oxford communique and help you make an informed decision.

Oxford Communique Investment Philosophy

So, who is Alexander Green, the man behind the Oxford Communique newsletters and its stock recommendations?

What is his investment philosophy?

Is he legit?

Here is his background that I found online.

Alexander Green started out in the business as a registered representative in the securities industry in 1985.

Before long, he was writing his firm’s research reports and client communications and managing discretionary accounts.

After 16 years in the money management business, he left to become the Chief Investment Strategist of The Oxford Club, where he has been for the past 16 years.

Now, how does Alexander Green pick his stocks?

What investing principles does he follow?

#1: Trade on Businesses, Not News

He thinks that the most common mistake that investors make is listening to the noise and acting on it.

Every day, there are people on the TV or YouTube telling everyone their predictions on where the market will go next or where the economy will go next.

But, the truth is that nobody can predict the market in the short term.

So, it’s not wise to let them control your investment decisions.

And it’s smart to resist the temptation to form opinions about the direction of the markets.

The only way to determine the best stocks is to look at business fundamentals.

Companies that increase sales, compound earnings at high rates, grow market share, improve operating margins, pay down debt, and buy back shares post superb returns, regardless of what the economy or stock market is doing.

And those companies that have flat or negative sales, lackluster earnings growth, and small profit margins are the laggards.

In short, Alexander Green thinks that stock market success is about analyzing businesses, not investing in some expert’s macroeconomic forecast.

#2: Stay Market Neutral

He also adopts a market-neutral approach when it comes to investing.

So, what does that mean?

Instead of always asking, “Where will the markets head next?”, he thinks that we need to be asking, “Where will a particular company’s earnings head next?”

He is not saying that we ignore or don’t care about the general direction of the market or the economy.

What he is trying to say is that it’s impossible to predict the next gyration, so why not embrace this fact by doing these:

• Picking opportunities based on the underlying fundamentals

• Dividing our portfolios across asset classes – stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and precious metals

• Using “trailing stops” to lock in profits on successful picks and keep losses small

• Staying disciplined and remaining fully invested.

He thinks that, over time, this market-neutral approach invariably outperforms the market, regardless of its direction.

#3: The Four Pillars of Wealth

He also advocates the “four pillars of wealth” that guide every investment decision that he makes.

Here are the “four pillars of wealth”:

1. Allocate your assets and your investment strategies with The Oxford Club’s Wealth Pyramid to increase your returns and dramatically lower your risk. And the foundation of the Wealth Pyramid is a properly diversified long-term portfolio – the Gone Fishin’ Portfolio of the Communiqué.

As you can see, he actually recommends ultra-short-term trading, which I find very contradictory since he mentions that you should stay “market neutral”.

2. Know your exit strategy and stick to it. Let your winners ride and cut your losers short.

3. Understand position sizing and know the risk level of every stock recommendation

4. Cut investment expenses. Avoid paying Wall Street’s outlandish fees and always tax-manage your investments.

Oxford Communique Portfolio

There are 4 recommended portfolios inside Oxford Communique.

One of them is a core portfolio that is meant for holding for the long term while the others are for short-term or long-term targeted trading.

Gone Fishin’ Portfolio

This is a simple diversified long-term investment portfolio that requires annual re-balancing only.

As they believe that asset allocation is the single most important investment decision, in the Gone Fishin’ Portfolio, they recommend that you implement that you divide your portfolio among different asset classes through a selection of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

For example, they would recommend a mix of bond market ETF, TIPS ETF, Stock Market ETF, Real Estate ETF, and Gold Miners ETF.

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.

Oxford Trading Portfolio

This is an active and diversified portfolio of the market’s short-term trading opportunities

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.

That means whatever you invested in this stock, you would suffer a loss of 25%.

So, how has this trading portfolio performed?

So far this year, almost all his stock recommendations have hit a 25% stop loss.

Personally, I feel that short-term trading is a loser’s game because no one can predict the market in the short term.

Oxford All-Star Portfolio

This is a diversified basket of funds managed by some of the world’s top-performing money managers such as Warren Buffet. ( trailing stops in this portfolio are not required)

There are a total of 7 recommended funds.

Three of the funds were first recommended in the early 2000s and still maintained a “Buy” rating.

As of July 2022, all the recommended funds have a positive total return with the highest total return being 529.9% (i.e. Berkshire Hathway) and the lowest total return being 9.1%.

Ten-Baggers of Tomorrow Portfolio

As the name suggests, it recommends highly speculative (i.e. highly risky) stocks with the potential to rise tenfold.

For this portfolio, only a tiny portion of your money should be allocated because you could also potentially lose all your capital invested in speculative stocks.

A 25% trailing stop in this portfolio is not required.

Instead, a sell recommendation will be triggered if a company misses the quarterly consensus revenue estimate by 20% or more – or if the company’s business prospects have changed for the worse in some fundamental way.

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%.

So, what should you do with these recommended portfolios?

For new investors, it is recommended that they first invest in the funds in the Gone Fishin’ Portfolio.

This is a market-beating asset-allocated portfolio with modest risk, low volatility, and a high probability of long-term success.

If you are an active investor who wants to trade individual stocks, there are stock recommendations marked with “Buy” in the Oxford Trading Portfolio that you can consider.

What Do You Get From Oxford Communique Subscription

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

So, what it means is that the recommended core portfolio will probably stay the same for years to come while you will get one recommendation every month for short-term trading.

Oxford Communique Pricing

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.

But, so far, most of the stock recommendations in the year 2022 for the Oxford Trading Portfolio hit the 25% stop loss.

Oxford Communique Vs Motley Fool Stock Advisor

So, what is the difference between Oxford Communique and Motley Fool?

Oxford Communique provides recommended portfolios both for long-term wealth building as well as short-term gain.

Its monthly stock recommendation is mostly for short-term trading.

On the other hand, Motley Fool Stock Advisor is focused on giving you stock recommendations that are high-quality companies with long-term growth potential.

What about the performance comparison between the Motley Fool and Oxford Communique?

Let’s just look at the “Gone Fishing Portfolio” because it’s long-term focused.

This “Gone Fishing Portfolio” was created in April 2003.

As of today, it has a total return of 284%.

Over the same period, the S&P 500 returned 354%.

So, “Gone Fishing Portfolio” actually underperformed the S&P 500.

Below is the performance comparison between Motley Fool Stock Advisor and S&P 500 between 2002 and 12th Mar 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?

This metric is important because I might not be buying every single stock recommendation made by the Motley Fool Stock Advisor.

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.]

In terms of pricing, Motley Fool Stock Advisor is also much more affordable.

Usually, Motley Fool Stock Advisor is priced at $199/year.

Right now, you can get unlimited access to Stock Advisor for just $89/year. (This special offer is for a limited time only).

Will the Motley Fool Stock Advisor always be right about their stock recommendations?

No, because no one can be right about their stock picks 100% of the time.

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.

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 $1.70 a week – you can gain unlimited access to their library of expert stock recommendations which are carefully selected to help you grow your wealth.

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