The Illusion of Knowledge

All Rights Reserved Follow us: Memo to: Oaktree Clients From: Howard Marks R e: The Illusion of Knowledge I’ve been expressing my disregard for forecasts for almost as long as I’ve been writing my memos, starting with The Value of Predictions, or Where’d All This Rain Come From in February 1993., It was that lunch that started me thinking about writing yet another memo on the futility of macro forecasting., Together, the lunch and these items inspired this memo’s theme: the reasons why forecasts are r arely helpful ., I found Ferguson’s article so relevant to the subject of this memo that I’m including a link to it here., All Rights Reserved Follow us: * * * In a 2001 memo called What’s It All About, Alpha?

Taking the Temperature

First, I felt the memos accurately conveyed my thinking at the key turning points in that 20-year period., Thus, I said so in the memo bubble.com, which was published as 2000 began., Here’s how I put it in a memo I wrote that day: Skepticism and pessimism aren’t synonymous., This is how things stood in March 2012, when I wrote the memo Déjà Vu All Over Again., As I wrote in that same memo: What do we know?

Conversations - Full Return World - Transcript

Howard, why were you interested in writing a follow-up to your memo, Sea Change?, And of course, the original Sea Change thesis came out of client visits that I made in October and November, and then the memo was released in December., I’ve never written a memo before that talked about something of the magnitude of the sea change that I think we’re going through., Anna So the last specific question I’ll ask about this memo, Howard, is for you, and it’s about capital allocation because it’s obviously a big part of the memo Further Thoughts on Sea Change., I discussed this in a memo called Race to the Bottom in February ’07, which unfortunately turned out to be right in the Global Financial Crisis.

2023 Year-End Book Recommendations

Stay True by Hua Hsu Priya Prasad-Bowe | Head of ESG Stay True is a beautifully written memoir about friendship and loss set in Northern California in the mid-1990s., TheCaliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca by Ta h i r Shah June Sun | Vice President, Infrastructure Investing In this captivating memoir, Ta h i r S h a h c h r o n i c l e s h i s d e c i s i o n t o u p r o o t h i s f a m i l y ’s life in London in order to purchase an ancient, crumbling mansion in Casablanca.

Mysterious

All Rights Reserved Follow us: Memo to: Oaktree Clients From: Howard Marks Re: Mysterious Most of the time, my memos have their origin in something interesting that’s happening in the world or in a series of events I come across that I think can be interestingly juxtaposed., The other day, my colleague Ian Schapiro, the leader of Oaktree’s Power Opportunities and Infrastructure groups, suggested I write a memo about negative interest rates., This question takes me back to my immediate response to Ian’s suggestion that I write this memo: nobody knows, and certainly not me., This memorandum is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose., This memorandum, including the information contained herein, may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or posted in whole or in part, in any form without the prior written consent of Oaktree

The Indispensability of Risk

That’s why I’ve written a memo comparing investing to sports in each of the four decades I’ve been writing memos and one connecting investing and card playing in 2020., Few people know that Bruce is a chess player, and I hadn’t thought about this fact for years, but the article provided a good reminder and moved me to dash off this memo., Relevant lessons from sports (included in past memos) are easily accessed and also very helpful: • “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky, NHL Hall of Famer • “You have to give yourself a chance to fail.” – Kenny “The Jet” Smith, two-time NBA champion I’ll sum up with a paragraph from my memo of last September, Fewer Losers, or More Winners?, This memorandum is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose., This memorandum, including the information contained herein, may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or posted in whole or in part, in any form without the prior written consent of Oaktree.

Behind The Memo - Bull Market Rhymes

2000-12-31-were-not-in-1999-anymore

A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d Memo to: OaktreeClients From: HowardMarks Re: We're Not In 1999 Anymore, Toto In "The Wizard of Oz," a tornado carried Dorothy and her dog, Toto, to a land ruled by a mysterious despot in whom people had vested extraordinary powers., A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d Legal Information and Disclosures This memorandum expresses the views of the author as of the date indicated and such views are subject to change without notice., This memorandum is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose., This memorandum, including the information contained herein, may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or posted in whole or in part, in any form without the prior written consent of Oaktree.

2000-05-01-irrational-exuberance

A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d Memo to: OaktreeClients From: HowardMarks Re: Irrational Exuberance Recent years have witnessed great excesses in the stock market., Thus I will attempt below to combine a number of ideas and bits of empirical data I've stored up over recent weeks in a memo which expresses my views and hopefully is of value to you., That being the case, I'm not going to miss the opportunity to celebrate the correctness to date of my last memo, “bubble. com.”, The table below lists the stocks mentioned in that memo and their declines from its publication at year end, and from the highs reached since then, to the April trough, This memorandum is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose.

2001-10-04-what-lies-ahead

A l l R i g h t s R e s e r v e d Memo to: OaktreeClients From: HowardMarks Re: WhatLiesAhead?, Writing my client memos gives me great satisfaction., I must admit that I haven't been looking forward to writing a memo about the economic and investment implications of the attacks., This memorandum is being made available for educational purposes only and should not be used for any other purpose., This memorandum, including the information contained herein, may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or posted in whole or in part, in any form without the prior written consent of Oaktree.