Howard Marks
Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management · 1 appearance on the record.
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investorfounderexecutiveauthor@HowardMarksBook ↗LinkedIn ↗oaktreecapital.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Howard Marks co-founded Oaktree Capital Management in 1995, building it into a global leader in alternative investments, distressed debt, and high-yield credit. He is widely recognized for his regular investment memos, as well as bestselling books such as The Most Important Thing and Mastering the Market Cycle.
24statements → 6claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 3.62/5average certainty → 2.12/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 53said about them ↓
4 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 1 not yet assessed how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
1 prediction · 5 assertions · 5 opinions · 11 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Howard argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Howard Marks on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Howard Marks said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Howard Marks: SEC doesn't scrutinize private credit valuations and LPs prefer it
“And by the way, the SEC doesn't look at these things, because these are private investments, so they don't require accuracy. And the investors in the fund are mostly happy without accuracy, because as I said, they don't have to report problems to their higher …”
Marks: Private credit is no longer special and is now fairly priced
“And I would say that the aspect of being undiscovered and unloved is over. It's a reasonable thing to do if you do it carefully, but I don't think it's a special strategy. It's just fairly priced.”
Marks: Private credit draws down less because valuations ignore market psychology
“Private credit and other private assets do not mark to market in the sense of reflecting the swings of psychology. When you go through a tough period and high yield bonds are down 10% and private credits down two percent, I think that's the explanation.”
Howard Marks: Private credit managers like avoiding mark-to-market accounting during downturns
“The people who run these funds Pretty much like the fact that they don't mark the market, because then in the bad times when the headlines in the papers are so negative, they don't have to go to the treasurer of the organization and say, we're down 10%. They c…”
Marks: Leveraged buyout math breaks down when borrowing costs hit 10%
“In the 20 teens, you could borrow money at six percent to do private equity deals. Now you have to pay it probably a nine to 10. Well, if you're going to buy a company and make 10 or 11% a year, you have to pay nine to 10% for the money, then a leveraged acqui…”
Marks: The post-2022 higher interest rate regime is structural and long-lasting
“I wrote a memo in December, 22, called The Sea Change, and it talked about the change in the interest rate climate, which I think is structural and long-lasting.”
Marks: No Asset Is Too Good to Overprice or Too Bad to Buy Cheap
“As time passed, I rounded that into a belief that there is no asset so good that it can't become overpriced and dangerous, and very few assets which are so bad that if it's cheap enough, it can't be a good idea.”
Marks: LBOs rebranded to private equity due to poor past results
“The leveraged buyout business actually had to reinvent itself, and you don't hear the term LBO business anymore. Now you hear private equity. Well, why did they change the name? Because nobody would do it if you called it leveraged buyouts because the results …”
Marks: Hedge funds stopped performing once they grew too large
“So you had the growth of the alternative investment business, and they tried hedge funds, but when the hedge funds got too big, they stopped performing, most of them, and then people fastened on private equity.”
Marks: In fixed income, avoiding losers makes winners take care of themselves
“If we avoid the losers, the winners take care of themselves. That's our official motto. And that's the right way to think about fixed income.”
Marks: Private equity funds hold roughly $3T in unsold portfolio companies
“And by the way, the private equity funds, I think they're sitting on about three trillion dollars worth of companies that they have to sell. To pay off the investors.”
Marks: Nifty 50 Equities Lost 95% Over Five Years After September 1969
“If you held the stocks for five years from the day I got there, you lost about 95% of your money in great companies.”
Marks: When neglected assets become popular, opportunity vanishes and risk remains
“As I say, if you do things nobody else wants to do, you can usually get a good deal. But then eventually other people figure out that it's a good idea. They flock in. It becomes more popular. And then of course, like everything, it gets overdone. Then the oppo…”
Marks: Lower Underwriting Standards Allow Competitors to Outbid Disciplined Investors
“That still presents a big problem because if you want to apply high standards and somebody else has lower standards, then they can bid more for a given deal.”
Marks: Current credit markets are slightly loose but not dangerously compromised
“So it's on today, but I don't think it's terrible today. It's just, the markets are a little bit generous today.”
Marks: Daily stock price swings reflect trader psychology, not intrinsic value
“Look at stock prices up and down one or two percent every day. That accurately tells you what some manic depressive is willing to trade at, but it doesn't accurately tell you what the company is worth.”
Marks: PE amassed $2.5T in dry powder and most remains uninvested
“The money gushed into private equity, and they got up to two and a half trillion or so of what we call dry powder, money waiting to get invested, and I think most of that is still dry, if I'm not mistaken.”
Marks: Public markets grade companies daily without understanding them
“We were semi-public from O seven to 12, and then public from 12 to 19, and people would say, how is that? I'd say, well, it's fine, except that every day you get a report card from somebody who doesn't know your business that well, called the market.”
Marks: Oaktree memos require differentiated viewpoints rather than consensus commentary
“The basic Thing is, I have to think I have something to write, which not everybody else has been writing or talking about, or I have to see something differently from everybody else. The last thing I want to do is put out a memo that says, me too.”
Marks: Private credit grew over 6x to $1.5T since 2007
“The banks were chastened, lost some of their capital, were more tightly regulated, We're discouraged from risk taking, and that led in 2011 or 12 to the creation of the private credit market, which is now over a trillion and a half. In oh seven, I think it was…”
Howard Marks: Private credit offers no liquidity once an investment is made
“If you buy a private credit and you change your mind, you shouldn't be able to expect to sell it. As my partner, Sheldon Stone, who's been with me for 42 years now, he was my first analyst at Citibank. He says there's no eraser on the pencil, which is, I think…”
Howard Marks: Oaktree records remedial debt exchanges as defaults
“When we do what Sheldon Stone called a remedial exchange, we mark that down as a default.”
Marks: Being raised by Depression-era adults instills fundamental investment caution
“If your parents were adults during the depression, they were traumatized, and you grew up hearing things like, don't put all your eggs in one basket and save for a rainy day. I think, if nothing else, that may be a rather, I would say, cautious person.”
The other half of the tape: Howard Marks's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 50 times in 22 episodes on Capital Allocators. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Ian Charles 9Jon Harris 7Morgan Housel 6Ted Seides 5Tim Recker 3Jim Williams 3Mark Baumgartner 2David Salem 2
Statements about Howard Marks, by other people (3)
Volatility is genuine risk because it induces investors to abandon their plans
“The smartest of the smart guys say that volatility is not risk. And I strongly, strongly disagree. Because if you're, what you're really trying to do is achieve your goals in life, and the more volatile an investment is, Makes it more likely that you're going …”
Friedman: Oaktree Outpaced Early Canyon by Targeting Institutional Asset Allocation Boxes
“I remember when our good friends, Bruce Karsh and Howard Marks left Trust Company in the West to start Oak Tree and almost instantly had more capital than we did, or at least as much, and we had started a few years earlier, and part of it was that they underst…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2025 3 mentions in 1 episode
2024 12 mentions in 3 episodes 4 per episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2021 14 mentions in 4 episodes 4 per episode
- Ian Charles & Doc O'Connor – Investing in Sports Teams at Arctos Sports Partners (Capital Allocators, EP.225)
- Friends Reunion – Five Allocators Riff on Investing (Capital Allocators, EP.215)
- Ted with Patrick O'Shaughnessy – Lessons from the World's Elite Money Managers (Capital Allocators, EP.184)
- Eli Casdin – Casdin Capital (Manager Meetings, EP.02)
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 7 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- Tim Recker - Concentration at the James Irvine Foundation (Capital Allocators, EP.100)
- Jon Harris – Investing in People at AIM (Capital Allocators, EP.105)
- Ash Williams – Florida SBA's Reigning Chief (Capital Allocator, EP.104)
- Ron Biscardi – Putting Hedge Funds in Context (Capital Allocators, EP.83)
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 9 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- James Williams – Curating The Getty's Assets (Capital Allocators, EP.50)
- Mark Baumgartner – Luck, Risk and Uncertainty at the Institute for Advanced Study (Capital Allocators, EP.77)
- Brian Portnoy – From Complex to Simple (Capital Allocators, EP.57)
- Tom Bushey – Launching a Hedge Fund (Capital Allocators EP.78)
- Michael Batnick - The Best Investors and Their Biggest Mistakes (Capital Allocators, EP.71)
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Howard Marks – Navigating Private Credit (EP.439) | Apr 7, 2025 | 34m |