I watched the Oxen Group for several years, first while they were part of Phil's Stock World, and then when they became independent. I took a few of their trades along the way, and they generally were good.
I e mailed David Ristau (founder and CEO) several times, and he always responded promptly. I requested details of performance, and got them no problem. I was impressed with his honesty. There was no BS involved.
I finally joined the Oxen Group in April of this year and started actively taking their trades. This has worked out very well, about as good as I could have reasonably hoped. My general barometer for advisory services is that the best they can generally do on a SUSTAINED basis is an win/loss accuracy of between 70% and 80%, and overall returns of 75% to 100% per year. Anything more than that is not sustainable long-term (at least, I've never seen it. In the 20+ years I have been investing and trading lots of different vehicles, I have seen lots that did way better than that, but never consistently over an extended period).
So how about my results? As of yesterday, my portfolio is up about 30% in slightly more than 3 months. The win/loss percentage has always remained close to 80%. It should be noted that I haven't taken all the trades, and I modified some for my own purposes, so my results will be somewhat different than their "official" results. Needless to say, if these kinds of returns are sustained, then the portfolio should double within a year without too much problem. That's about as good as it gets in my opinion, unless one is willing to take on enormous amounts of speculative risk that, in the vast majority of cases, proves lethal in the long run (yes, that's the voice of sad experience there!).
What I am pleased about are these factors, which are extremely important to me:
1) No BS, no attempts to fudge numbers or "backdate" entries, etc. If you are on the chat, you can watch things as they are considering a trade. When they enter, they IMMEDIATELY e mail and post on the chat what their entry is. They don't wait 10 minutes to see if the market moved the way they anticipated, then tell you "oh by the way, we already got in, and amazingly enough, we already have a 1% profit!" They also tell you what the entry range is, so you can watch trading for a while and adjust position size according to where in the entry range the stock is currently trading. And, they post clear targets, and also post in real time when they are exiting a position, and what their exit price was. Most often, they tell you exactly where they are planning to exit, so when they do exit, the post is not a surprise at all.
2) Not too much trading, and not too little trading.
3) Autotrading feature for those too busy to follow along.
4) Everything is transparent. You can ask them questions on chat or by e mail, and they always respond promptly.
5) High standards of professionalism. They treat everybody respect and courtesy, even the occasional really dumb questions or whining (that's rare; almost everybody seems to be pretty satisfied, so far as I can tell).
6) I have watched David Ristau now for about 3 years I guess, and he has gotten better and better. What do I mean by that exactly? Simply this: he doesn't sit on losers very long; he is quick to realize a trade didn't go as anticipated, and not too proud to admit it. He moves quickly on to the next thing. He cuts losses quickly. His gains on winners thereby are greater than his losses on losers, a critical ratio in my book. He and his team process an enormous amount of data in real time and come to practical conclusions about them that are relevant to trading decisions. David has something that, in my experience, can neither be taught nor learned: a gut-level feel for the markets and specific stocks. There's no shortage of data out there, but one can use it to support just about any conclusion, so the task distills down to distinguishing relevant, useful, accurate information from that which is not, and doing so quickly and consistently. David does a very good job of that.
7) Considering what you get, the costs are reasonable. And, there are several levels of service that might suit different types of investors.
SUMMARY: On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the ideal, ultimate advisory service (which I have never encountered or heard of) and 1 being your brother-in-law's hot bet the farm on my goin' to the mooon some day real soooon penny stock picks, I would rate the Oxen Group as an 8.5 to 9.0. For what I need and want, this is about as good as one could hope for. Yes, there is room for improvement, and I have sent them suggestions that they take seriously, and they have made it clear that their goal is to steadily improve things. I have no realistic expectations of finding a better service any time in the near future. The Oxen Group is well worth the subscription price, in my opinion. I was NOT compensated anything in any way shape or form for this review, and they have promised or hinted at no compensation either. They don't even know I am writing this, and I don't plan to tell them.
This review is the subjective opinion of an Investimonials member and not of Investimonials LLC
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