2013-08-05-the-role-of-confidence

That’s what this memo is about., Confidence Today Back in September, I wrote a memo entitled “On Uncertain Ground.”, In mid-2007 I was working on a memo with the projected title “The Mother of All Cycles.”, In the memo I complained that every asset class, every asset and every region was appreciating., Thus that memo was followed by “It’s All Good . . .

More on Repealing the Laws of Economics

All Rights Reserved Follow us: Memo to: Oaktree Clients From: Howard Marks Re: More on Repealing the Laws of Economics Last September, I wrote a memo titled Shall We Repeal the Laws of Economics?, Rent Control A prime example discussed in my September memo was rent control., On April 9, in my memo Nobody Knows (Yet Again), I guessed at President Trump’s goals in enacting them as follows: • support U.S. manufacturing • discourage imports • encourage exports • shrink or eliminate our trade deficit • make supply chains more secure through onshoring • deter unfair trade practices aimed at the U.S

Yet Again

All Rights Reserved Follow us: Memo to: Oaktree Clients From: Howard Marks Re: Yet Again?, As I said in the memo, “it’s not real” – there is no intrinsic value behind it., It’s time for caution, as I wrote in the memo, not a full-scale exodus., Thus I’ve realized the memo was diagnostic but not sufficiently prescriptive., If you believe what I said in the memo about the presence of risk today, you might want to opt for #3.

Behind the Memo - The Indispensability of Risk with Howard Marks, Bruce Karsh, and Maurice Ashley

Conversation at Panmure House

In the late ’90s, I wrote a memo called What's It All About, Alpha?, In the spring of 2007, I wrote a memo called The Race to the Bottom., PS: I’d like to talk more about the memo Investing Without People., In the memo Investing Without People, there are three sections., The conversation on pp. 7-8 of this memo is for illustrative purposes only.

2007-07-30-its-all-good-Really

A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d Memo to: OaktreeClients From: Howard Marks Re: It’s All Good . . ., UThe Seed This memo isn’t about the events of July 2007, but rather how recent events exemplify the time-honored pattern that kicks off the swing back of the pendulum., But what we do know is that the bull-market excesses I decried in my memo of two weeks ago (and in “The New Paradigm” in October and “The Race to the Bottom” in February) have reversed for the moment, with profound effects on asset prices.

2006-09-07-dare-to-be-great

 Memo to: OaktreeClients From: Howard M a r k s R e : DaretoBeGreat Inoneofthemost colorful vignettes of the early 1970s, Glenn Turner, the head of Koscot Interplanetary, would fly into a small Midwestern town in his Learjet (when that was a huge deal)., This memo stems from an accumulation of thoughts on the subject of how investment management clients might best pursue superior results., Typically my thoughts pile up, and then something prompts me to turn them into a memo., * * * I hope this memo won’t come across as preachy.

2008-02-20-whodunit

A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d Memo to: OaktreeClients From: Howard M a r k s R e : Whodunit w h o · d u n · i t – ( h ō ō d u n ´ i t ) n . a n a r r a t i v e dealing with a murder or a series of murders and the detection of the criminal (The Random House Dictionary of the English Language) The subprime crisis, credit crunch and possible recession are subjects of daily conversation., It’s the purpose of this memo to say where I think responsibility lies.,  William Conway of Carlyle Group attracted a lot of attention – but perhaps not all he deserved – for a January 2007 memo to his Carlyle colleagues, in which he wrote: As you all know (I hope), the fabulous profits that we have been able to generate for our limited partners are not solely a function of our investment genius, but have resulted in large part from a great market and the availability of enormous amounts of cheap debt. . . ., My wife Nancy says she likes this memo more than most, because the lesson is so easy to understand.

The Folly of Certainty

 Memo to: Oaktree Clients From: Howard Marks R e: The Folly of Certainty The impetus for my memos can come from a wide variety of sources., And, with that, I had the subject of this memo: not whether Biden will continue campaigning or drop out – or whether he’ll win if he continues – but rather how anyone can be without doubt., Back in mid-2020, when the pandemic seemed to have become a more or less understood phenomenon, I slowed the pace of my memo writing from the one-a-week pattern of March and April., A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D P.S.: Last summer’s Grand Slam tennis tournaments provided the inspiration for my memo Fewer Losers, or More Winners?, Similarly, this past Saturday’s women’s final match at Wimbledon has provided a snippet for this memo.

The Impact of Debt

My partner Bruce Karsh recently supplied me with a newspaper article about chess that inspired me to write a brief memo called The Indispensability of Risk ., Thus encouraged, I’m following up with another short memo., Housel’s approach to thinking about debt – and especially his illustrations – reminded me of my December 2008 memo, Volatility + Leverage = Dynamite ., (Unless otherwise indicated, this memo is the source of the quotations that follow; in all cases, emphasis is in the original.), In that memo, I used a series of simple graphics to show that the lower a company’s debt load is, the greater the decline in fortune it could survive.