When Howard Marks reflects on 30 years of building Oaktree, it’s clear the firm’s success was never about chasing home runs—it was about doing things right. “We merely thought that we’ve done a good job for clients to date. If we can keep doing a good job, we’ll have a … Read More
Howard Marks on Luck, Integrity, and Being Unemotional
Listening to Howard Marks talk about his journey, you quickly realize he isn’t just sharing a career story — he’s explaining how to survive and thrive in investing and in life. One of the biggest lessons he repeats is simple but powerful: investing is a mental game. “Investment management is … Read More
Howard Marks: FOMO vs. Fundamentals
Howard Marks has this gift for cutting through the noise. At Global Alts Miami 2025, he didn’t come with a market prediction or some flashy hot take on tech. In fact, when asked about Nvidia’s big 16% drop thanks to a new Chinese chatbot, he shrugged and said, “I don’t … Read More
Howard Marks: “Excessive Certainty Is The Enemy”
Howard Marks is the kind of investor who challenges the way you think. In this interview, he shares insight after insight, all with the steady, grounded perspective that only comes from decades of navigating real markets. What really stands out is his consistent focus on risk. “The challenge, the real … Read More
Howard Marks: Tariffs, Turmoil, and Where to Find Opportunities
Howard Marks’ latest memo, “Nobody Knows (Yet Again),” is a stark reminder of how unpredictable the world—especially the economy—can be. Drawing parallels to the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, Marks emphasizes that certainty is a luxury we rarely have, especially during upheavals. “There’s absolutely no place for certainty … Read More
Howard Marks: Why Do Investors Repeatedly Make The Same Mistakes?
Howard Marks has long warned of the dangers of short memories in finance. In his memo Hindsight First, Please (or, What Were They Thinking?), he underscores how easily investors repeat mistakes by ignoring history. As Marks puts it, quoting John Kenneth Galbraith, “the extreme brevity of the financial memory” is … Read More
Howard Marks on Tariffs, Market Risks & Opportunities
Howard Marks has navigated market cycles for decades, but his recent Bloomberg interview revealed even he finds today’s environment extraordinary. “This is the biggest change in the environment that I’ve seen probably in my career,” he says. The rapid shift from globalization to trade wars and tariffs has created unprecedented … Read More
Howard Marks: How Investing Psychology Creates Market Bargains
Howard Marks makes a pretty simple but powerful point in The Most Important Thing: bargains don’t come from things everyone loves. They come from things people are scared of, don’t understand, or just ignore. As he puts it, “the necessary condition for the existence of bargains is that perception has … Read More
Howard Marks: Why Successful Investors Are Often Lonely
Let’s be honest—most people are terrible at investing. They follow the crowd, buy what’s already popular, and wonder why they never make real money. Howard Marks nailed it in his memo Everyone Knows when he said, “Superior investors know—and buy—when the price of something is lower than it should be.” … Read More
Howard Marks: How to Overcome Fear and Greed in Investing
As someone who’s been investing for many years, I’ve realised that investing is a psychological battlefield, where the hardest decisions are rarely about numbers and valuations—they’re about emotions. Howard Marks captures this dilemma perfectly in The Most Important Thing, where he reflects on the tech bubble and the 2008 financial … Read More
Howard Marks: The Art of Holding
If you’re like me, one of the things I often struggle with is the question of when to sell. The instinct to lock in gains when something is up, or to cut losses when something is down, feels natural. But as Howard Marks recently explained on The Money Maze Podcast, … Read More
Howard Marks: Why History Always Rhymes In Markets
Howard Marks is one of the most insightful voices in investing. He recently spoke at Moneycontrol GWS 2025, discussing market behavior, cycles, and investor psychology. His reflections are a reminder that while the specifics of history change, human behavior remains remarkably predictable. As he quoted Mark Twain, “Well, of course, … Read More
Uncomfortably Idiosyncratic: Howard Marks on Smart Investing
In the latest episode of Behind the Memo, legendary investor Howard Marks shared his wisdom on navigating market cycles, particularly during speculative bubbles. His insights serve as a crucial reminder for investors: true success comes from independent thinking and resisting the herd mentality. One of Marks’ most striking points is … Read More
Howard Marks: Market Cycles and the Illusion of Average
For as long as I’ve followed financial markets, the prevailing wisdom has been to think of economic and market cycles in terms of ups and downs—booms and busts, bull and bear markets. But after listening to Howard Marks on the Sweat Your Assets podcast, I’ve come to see cycles differently. … Read More
Howard Marks: Why Risk Is Perverse
Risk is often misunderstood, not because it is complicated, but because it defies intuition. As Howard Marks explains in his discussion on the character of risk, “risk is counterintuitive” and “risk is perverse.” The way we perceive risk can often be the exact opposite of reality, leading investors, policymakers, and … Read More
Howard Marks: Is Now the Time to Exit the Market?
In this interview with The Market, Howard Marks suggests that stocks are currently overvalued by 20-30%, with a 60-65% probability the market will be lower in a year. However, there’s still a 35-40% chance it could rise, highlighting uncertainty. While a downward tendency exists, it’s not a certainty, and valuations … Read More
Howard Marks: When Something Is On The Pedestal Of Popularity, Risk Of Decline Is High
In his latest memo titled – On Bubble Watch, Howard Marks discusses how bubbles, while often grounded in a kernel of truth, lead to excessive valuations fueled by optimism, FOMO, and a belief that prices can’t fall. He reflects on past bubbles, such as the late ’90s internet mania and … Read More
Howard Marks: Adapt Your Portfolio to the Present, Not the Unknown
In his book, The Most Important Thing, Howard Marks explains that strategic decisions in various fields, such as driving, golfing, or dressing, are influenced by current conditions. Similarly, he argues that investment actions should reflect the present investing climate rather than uncertain future predictions. While many investors attempt to adjust … Read More
Howard Marks: In Investing It’s Really Easy To Be ‘Average’
In this fireside chat with the HKUST Business School, Howard Marks discussed the cyclical nature of markets, emphasizing that cycles are driven by excesses in psychology and behavior. He explained that an excess of positive psychology leads to unsustainable behavior above the trend line, which eventually corrects back, often overshooting … Read More
Howard Marks – Top 10 Holdings – Latest 13F
One of the best resources for investors are the publicly available 13F-HR documents that each fund is required to submit to the SEC. These documents allow investors to track their favorite superinvestors, their fund’s current holdings, plus their new buys and sold out positions. We spend a lot of time … Read More