Oxford Club / The Communique

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This is the main investment ideas newsletter from the Oxford Club, published twice per month.

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Posted in Stocks | Tagged Gold Stock Bull |

Gumshoe Articles & Teaser Picks Revealed

“The Great Treasure of the Bismarck Sea”

Nothing quite stirs the soul like the promise of undersea adventure and finding sunken pirate treasure — just ask Clive Cussler, who has so excited millions of readers with his stories of undersea adventure and treasure hunting that he doesn’t even have to write his own books anymore. And that fact hasn’t escaped the investment [...]

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“Make a Fortune on ‘The Facebook Effect’: The New ‘Lord of the Cloud’”

It’s been a little while since we dug into an Oxford Club promo, so this latest one that uses the eventual Facebook IPO as a hook caught my attention … in exchange for signing up for a membership in this particular club, they say you’ll “learn everything about making money from the ‘Facebook Effect.’” No, [...]

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“The #1 Threat to U.S. National Security… And Your Retirement”

If you’re like most of my readers, you’ve probably seen this very high-voltage teaser a few times in recent days — it’s all about cybersecurity, but the Oxford Club folks aren’t content to just tell you that online security and hacker-fighting is a large and growing business, they apparently also want to scare your pants [...]

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“Gov’t Code SR-417 Mandates $139 Billion ‘Private Wealth Release’”

Today’s delightful tidbit of teasermania comes in from Marc Lichtenfeld, who tends to focus on biotech and health care stocks. He’s been around for a while, and is now drumming up members for the Oxford Club instead of one of his own biotech-focused letters, and pitching some ideas that sound like they’re a little larger [...]

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“Starting On November 1, this ‘Can’t Lose’ Tech Stock Will Crash and Burn”

I always like to write about a bear case on a stock, or a put-buying or short-selling teaser, because they’re so rare — most people wouldn’t consider shorting stocks because of the different risk profile and the unfamiliar process, and many folks even think there’s something vaguely un-American about betting against a stock. And, of [...]

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Subscriber Reviews

Posted by MachineGhost on Nov 20, 2011 @ 12:18 pm

I’ve been a lifetime member since the very early 90′s, so I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly.

The bad in the 90′s was due to ex-Investment Director Chris Weber’s terrible performance (at one point it was -10% for the previous three years according to Hulbert). He was eventually thrown out circa 1998-1999 and replaced with Alex Green, who was recruited by Executive Director, Julia Guth. Those two individuals are pretty much the nuts and bolts of The Oxford Club.

Green brought basic discipline to the club in the form of total portfolio asset allocation, trailing stops on the Trading Portfolio, All Star Portfolio (buy and hold), Perpetual Income Portfolio (since spun off as a separate portfolio with its own monthly newsletter), Seven Sins Portfolio and the Gone Fishin’ Portfolio. While Green is not a market timing believer and that gospel does permeate the entire Club and its numerous journalist correspondents (there is a revolving door — even Porter Stansberry worked for them at one point before being fired; the Club’s best trade of JDSU’s 900%+ gain is solely due to Stansberry), he did warn members about the dot.com mania bubble in January 2000, three months before the top.

Green’s huge screwups were in recommending principal-protected, structured notes from Merrill Lynch (MITTS) that left investors with nothing when Merrill Lynch went belly-up in 2008. For the All Star Portfolio, he also recommended “15-year market beater” (it was really just a quirk of year end calendar reporting) Bill Miller’s Legg Mason Value Fund before it lost 50% or so in 2008. Unfortunately, Green is again pushing a new breed of structured notes in a $49 “book”.

Other than that, the ridiculously high priced advisory services (mostly Green’s) seem overrated. They suffer from the lack of market timing, of which will generate consecutive losing trading during bearish periods. It is really not that difficult to peform basic market timing to improve the risk/reward ratio, yet Green must be overhappy collecting $2K-$5K+ a year from subscribers and not worry about improving his own cooking. Since Green is from Wall Street, the Top 1% mentality must live on.

In case anyone wonders who is behind parent company Agora’s publishing “empire”, I believe it is perma-bears William Bonner (of The Daily Reckoning) and pretend Libertarian but in the closet Republican James Dale Davidson (formerly of Strategic Investment). Agora was not an “empire” in the beginning. Direct marketing is how Agora grew to be an “empire”, not newsletter performance.

It is a stretch to call The Oxford Club an exclusive and private financial club when it is simply a direct marketing business. That’s not to say they are not good at what they do or that there isn’t camradie among Club members at seminars, cruises or local chapter meetings, but it is nowhere the same thing as getting access to the real movers and shakers of Wall Street, which is the kind of image they try to hook you on.

Come to think of it… all of these “investment advisory journalists” seem to get paid six figures while living like a hog and raising their [new] families at our expense. It is not related to stellar outperformance at all, but direct marketing. The Hilton philosophy is alive and well.

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Posted by jrs on Feb 25, 2011 @ 1:46 pm

I’ve been with the OC for 4 years and have very sparingly cherry picked their recommendations and only after my own research. The picks I settled on have done very well over the years and I have used their small portfolio allocation advice (no more than 4% per stock). Additionally I have employed their trailing stop advice and between these two key trading/investing tools I have done well. My advice is to ignore all the hype and additional sales pitches–if you ever want to know what over-hyped stock pick they are trying to sell use this site to cut through the BS.

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Posted by Rick on Feb 8, 2011 @ 10:17 am

I have subscribed to OC ($79/year) for at least 10 years. I have tried many different newsletters, several trading services and options advisors. As you can tell I am a sucker for long shots. That being said, I have benefited greatly, mostly by applying the general knowledge in their articles to my retirement accounts, selecting V.G. mutual funds in line with their (usually Alex Green’s) view of the upcoming year(s). I also from time to time will buy a 100 shares of a stock pick that resonates with me, and that usually works out positively.
As has been said, they work great in a bull market, and in the downturn nothing was working except keeping your head low. Trying to time shorts (puts) was brutal. The fact that they kept recommending buys and getting stopped out they justified by saying that you never know when the bear was going to turn around. True enough.
I wish their pitch for their trading services were true, but they really don’t have a crystal ball anymore than anyone else. It puts a tarnish on their reputation, but apparently it is making them money.
In the long run, I have made many times more than the $790 +/- I have paid in the last 10 years for the basic subscription.

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Posted by David O on Dec 6, 2010 @ 3:00 pm

Subscribed to Oxford Club October 2009.I waited patiently for new recommendations. There were a couple losers in the beginning but over the last 8 months they are right on target with great returns and a couple of unbelievable picks. I rejoined and at least they do well in a up market. The Oxford Portfolio is A-, the 7 Deadly Sins is also A-, The Perpetual Income Portfolio is B and the other 2 mutual fund portfolios are worthless. I like them and for $79 they are worth a lot more. I throw out all their other junk. Also, I do my own research to verify their recommendations.

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Posted by Charles on Sep 4, 2010 @ 1:22 am

Oxford’s newsletter is mainly to “Sell” you higher costing “Services” that you thought you were going to get when you subscribed originally. A great tease and a LOT of BULL.

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