Howard Marks - Embracing the Psychology of Investing - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 231]

My guest today is Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital, a leading investment manager, and one of the world’s largest distressed debt investors. In our conversation, we discuss takeaways from the market selloff and rapid recovery in 2020, the importance of assessing both quantitative and qualitative factors in markets, and the benefits Howard has realized from a career of writing. I hope you enjoy this great conversation with Howard Marks. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ------ This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Affirm, Teladoc, Roblox, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit tegus.co/patrick to learn more. ------ This episode is brought to you by Paxos. Paxos offers your customers crypto buying, selling, transferring, and more with easy to integrate APIs. Whether you’re a small fintech or a large financial institution, Paxos takes care of everything in the backend – from licensing and compliance to custody and exchange. You can start offering crypto to your customers within months. To learn more, visit paxos.com/patrick. ------ Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes [00:03:40] - [First question] - Ideas he has that he feels will stand the test of time [00:04:39] - Defining the difference between risk and uncertainty and a frame of mind to have around uncertainty as an investor [00:05:31] - Equity and debt investing as the businesses of what could go right or wrong [00:07:01] - How exciting equity up runs can lead to analytical blindspots [00:09:10] - Ways in which the last 18 months stacked up against his market experience [00:11:57] - Ways we can change our model of the world going forward to avoid a crisis [00:15:04] - Why psychology is important to consider over data during market extremes [00:17:46] - Reflections and lessons from discussing the concept of value with his son [00:27:33] - Spirited disagreements he and his son continue to have about markets [00:31:46] - What he’s learned about writing well and the utility of doing so [00:40:39] - Lessons that are better experienced in investing than reading about them [00:43:35] - Daring to be great and the willingness to be wrong, alone or different [00:50:24] - Embracing mystery and the joys it can bring [00:53:28] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him