Howard Marks has recently released his latest memo titled – Yet Again? In this memo Marks reflects on the response he received to his previous memo titled – There They Go Again…Again.
Marks wrote the following about the response he received to his last memo:
“There They Go Again . . . Again of July 26 has generated the most response in the 28 years I’ve been writing memos, with comments coming from Oaktree clients, other readers, the print media and TV. I also understand my comments regarding digital currencies have been the subject of extensive – and critical – comments on social media, but my primitiveness in this regard has kept me from seeing them.”
“The responses and the time that has elapsed have given me the opportunity to listen, learn and think. Thus I’ve decided to share some of those reflections here.”
While the latest memo contains lots of great supplemental investing insights on the State of The Market, Passive Investing, Bitcoin and the FAANGS, the section that I found most interesting is titled – Investing In A Low Return World. Here’s an excerpt from the latest memo:
Investing in a Low-Return World
A lot of the questions I’ve gotten on the memo are one form or another of “So what should I do?” Thus I’ve realized the memo was diagnostic but not sufficiently prescriptive. I should have spent more time on the subject of what behavior is right for the environment I think we’re in.
In the low-return world I described in the memo, the options are limited:
Invest as you always have and expect your historic returns.
Invest as you always have and settle for today’s low returns.
Reduce risk to prepare for a correction and accept still-lower returns.
Go to cash at a near-zero return and wait for a better environment.
Increase risk in pursuit of higher returns.
Put more into special niches and special investment managers.
It would be sheer folly to expect to earn traditional returns today from investing like you’ve done traditionally (#1). With the risk-free rate of interest near zero and the returns on all other investments scaled based on that, I dare say few if any asset classes will return in the next few years what they’ve delivered historically.
Thus one of the sensible courses of action is to invest as you did in the past but accept that returns will be lower. Sensible, but not highly satisfactory. No one wants to make less than they used to, and the return needs of institutions such as pension funds and endowments are little changed. Thus #2 is difficult.
If you believe what I said in the memo about the presence of risk today, you might want to opt for #3. In the future people may demand higher prospective returns or increased prospective risk compensation, and the way investments would provide them would be through a correction that lowers their prices. If you think a correction is coming, reducing your risk makes sense. But what if it takes years for it to arrive? Since Treasurys currently offer 1-2% and high yield bonds offer 5-6%, for example, fleeing to the safety of Treasurys would cost you about 4% per year. What if it takes years to be proved right?
Going to cash (#4) is the extreme example of risk reduction. Are you willing to accept a return of zero as the price for being assured of avoiding a possible correction? Most investors can’t or won’t voluntarily sign on for zero returns.
All the above leads to #5: increasing risk as the way to earn high returns in a low-return world. But if the presence of elevated risk in the environment truly means a correction lies ahead at some point, risk should be increased only with care. As I said in the memo, every investment decision can be implemented in high-risk or low-risk ways, and in risk-conscious or risk-oblivious ways. High risk does not assure higher returns. It means accepting greater uncertainty with the goal of higher returns and the possibility of substantially lower (or negative) returns. I’m convinced that at this juncture it should be done with great care, if at all.
And that leaves #6. “Special niches and special people,” if they can be identified, can deliver higher returns without proportionally more risk. That’s what “special” means to me, and it seems like the ideal solution. But it’s not easy. Pursuing this tack has to be based on the belief that (a) there are inefficient markets and (b) you or your managers have the exceptional skill needed to exploit them. Simply put, this can’t be done without risk, as one’s choice of market or manager can easily backfire.
As I mentioned above, none of these possibilities is attractive or a sure thing. But there are no others. What would I do? For me the answer lies in a combination of numbers 2, 3 and 6.
Expecting normal returns from normal activities (#1) is out in my book, as are settling for zero in cash (#4) and amping up risk in the hope of draws from the favorable part of the probability distribution (#5) (our current position in the elevated part of the cycle decreases the likelihood that outcomes will be favorable).
Thus I would mostly do the things I always have done and accept that returns will be lower than they traditionally have been (#2). While doing the usual, I would increase the caution with which I do it (#3), even at the cost of a reduction in expected return. And I would emphasize “alpha markets” where hard work and skill might add to returns (#6), since there are no “beta markets” that offer generous returns today.
These things are all embodied in our implementation of the mantra that has guided Oaktree in recent years: “move forward, but with caution.”
Since the U.S. economy continues to bump along, growing moderately, there’s no reason to expect a recession anytime soon. As a consequence, it’s inappropriate to bet that a correction of high prices and pro-risk behavior will occur in the immediate future (but also, of course, that it won’t).
Thus Oaktree is investing today wherever good investment opportunities arise, and we’re not afraid to be fully invested where there are enough of them. But we are employing caution, and since we’re a firm that thinks of itself as always being cautious, that means more caution than usual.
This posture has served us extremely well in recent years. Our underlying conservatism has given us the confidence needed to be largely fully invested, and this has permitted us to participate when the markets performed better than expected, as they did in 2016 and several of the last six years. Thus we’ll continue to follow our mantra, as we think it positions us well for the uncertain environment that lies ahead.
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