Iconic Investor Insight of the week
For the week of November 14th
Today’s iconic investor insight comes from Howard Marks. Mr Marks is the co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management (holdings here). Oaktree currently has over $147B in assets under management. Mr Marks has published 3 books on investing (amzn link here) and will occasionally publish “memos” on Oaktree’s website (link here). I’ve highlighted his memo on liquidity, written in March of 2015, twice (7/9/21 & 12/14/21). His memos have gotten high praise from Warren Buffett who has said, “When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they’re the first thing I open and read. I always learn something, and that goes double for his book.”
“I try every chance I get to convince people that in investing, there’s no such thing as a good idea… or a bad idea. Anything can be a good idea at one price and time, and a bad one at another. Here’s how I’ve put it in the past: It has been demonstrated time and time again that no asset is so good that it can’t become a bad investment if bought at too high a price. And there are few assets so bad that they can’t be a good investment when bought cheap enough… No asset class or investment has the birthright of a big return. It’s only attractive if it’s priced right. Investment success doesn’t come primarily from ‘buying good things,’ but rather from ‘buying things well’”.
-Howard Marks
The week ahead:
Tuesday, November 15th
Producer Price Index
Wednesday, November 16th
Mortgage; Applications, Purchase Index, Refinance Index, Market Index, 30-year rates
Import/Export Prices
Retail Sales
Manufacturing Production
EIA data
Thursday, November 17th
Building Permits/Housing Starts
Initial & Continuing Jobless Claims
Friday, November 18th
Existing Home sales
In Howard Mark’s fashion, I’ve worked up a little spreadsheet to track which stocks I’m holding and looking at that might be a “good idea” due to their price. I’ve got three things I’m looking at here;