The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 14 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Marks: Risk Is Probability of Bad Outcomes, Not Volatility
“Now, I don't think volatility is risk. I think risk is the probability of bad outcomes.”
Marks: Cycles occur because human psychology drives upside excesses and downside overcorrections
“Cycles happen because people, not electrons, but people commit excesses to the upside, usually out of enthusiasm. Which then have to be corrected, and those corrections overshoot to the downside.”
Howard Marks: Luck is real, important, and inherently unfair
“I read a piece quoted some Silicon Valley guy who says, success is never accidental. You make your own luck. And I don't agree. I think luck is a real thing and it's important and it's inherently unfair, but that's life.”
Marks: Innate intelligence is luck, not personal merit
“What did you do to deserve, develop, or nurture your IQ? You were born with a brain that works better than others. That's luck. And it's totally, it's not merit.”
Marks: Everything important in investing is counterintuitive and obvious ideas are wrong
“Everything that's important in investing is counterintuitive. And everything that's obvious is wrong.”
Marks: Outperformance requires daring to be different, wrong, and look wrong
“The question is, do you dare to be different Because clearly by, you have to diverge from the pack is required if you're going to be a superior. In anything. And number two, do you dare to be wrong? Number three, do you dare to be look wrong? Do you dare to lo…”
Howard Marks: Investors shouldn't self-flagellate over mistakes if process was sound
“Being wrong comes with the franchise of an activity whose outcome depends on an unknown future. No baseball player expects to bat a thousand. Investors shouldn't. Which means they shouldn't get down on themselves if they make a mistake as long as they re-exami…”
Marks: Investor psychology swings between perfection and total collapse
“In the real world, things fluctuate by, between pretty good and not so hot. But in the investment world, investors go from, you know, perfect to no chance of survival in their psychology.”
Marks: Organizations that second-guess mistakes make investors mistake-averse
“And if you have a partner or an organization which second guesses your mistakes, then you become mistake averse.”
Marks: Institutional Investors Risk Firing for Losses Over Missed Gains
“And more, an investor who works for somebody else is more likely to get fired for losing money than for missing out on opportunities.”
Marks: Investors Cannot Rely Solely on Expected Value Calculations
“And so we can't just invest on the basis of the probability distribution and the expected value. We also have to take our own tolerances and predilections into account.”
Howard Marks: Insulating children from mistakes leaves them vulnerable later
“Your kids will make mistakes, hopefully not lethal ones, and insulating them from making mistakes is not doing them a favor, because if they make their first mistake at five, And they improve their decision-making process, and they learn that mistakes don't ki…”
Marks: Unlike regular consumers, Wall Street investors buy more as prices rise
“Now, in most walks of life, people buy more when the prices go down during sales. On Wall Street, they buy more when the prices rise.”
Howard Marks: Kids must understand that money is finite to function well
“I think one of the most important things to have kids who function well around money is for them to have a feeling of finiteness, and this goes back really to economic reality, the memo. They should understand. That money is finite. No matter how much money yo…”