| Each week in this section, Chief Investment Strategist Alexander Green responds to reader questions. It's your direct line to the Chief! Have a question for Alex? Drop him a line at mailbag@oxfordclub.com. Reader: I have been a longtime subscriber to The Oxford Communiqué and all of Alex's VIP Trading Services. In those services, he repeatedly advises subscribers to use a buy limit rather than buying "at market" and potentially chasing the stock. The latest edition of The Insider Alert notes that [a stock] is up 7% since he recommended it the previous week. I dutifully place virtually every order Alex notes, yet many times my orders go unfilled, as was the case with [this recommendation]. To say "we are up 7% in a week" is misleading at best and outright untrue in reality. This has happened to me time and time again where I place orders, only to never see them filled. This is frustrating, as a subscriber and as an investor. I would like some input from The Oxford Club on this issue. - L.O. Alex: First off, thank you for being a longtime Member and subscriber. Thanks also for taking the time to express your concerns here. You are correct that I generally suggest - except with megacap companies - that subscribers to my VIP services use a buy limit. I do that for your benefit. If I recommend a stock and just 1,000 subscribers buy an average of 1,000 shares, that's 1 million shares coming in on the buy side all at once. That can cause a temporary price spike that will generally lead to a poor execution. (And a good fill is the first key in maximizing your gain.) Ordinarily, a stock will settle back after the original recommendation goes out. But in a red-hot market like we've had lately, it may not pull back to the limit. However, it's important to note that the buy limit is only meant for the day of the recommendation. If the stock has not settled back by late the next day, subscribers may want to convert their limit to a market order. Why? Because the stock is no longer moving based on my recommendation but on other factors related to the company or the broader market. Let me also note two other things here. First off, I'm never disingenuous when I note that a stock is up (or down) from the original recommended price. While you may not always get a fill at the buy limit, other subscribers who acted sooner almost certainly did. Those limits are always above the current offer when the alerts go out. It is the other subscribers - who are most definitely getting a fill - that are pushing the price higher in the first couple of hours. The good news? This effect is usually temporary. If every stock I recommended went up from the recommended price and never came down again, I'd be on the cover of Barron's. Every week. So stick to my buy limits but - like all subscribers - feel free to adjust them if you haven't gotten a fill near the end of the following session. | 
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