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Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side
The legendary investor shows how to identify and master the cycles that govern the markets.
We all know markets rise and fall, but when should you pull out, and when should you stay in? The answer is never black or white, but is best reached through a keen understanding of the reasons behind the rhythm of cycles. Confidence about where we are in a cycle comes when you learn the patterns of ups and downs that influence not just economics, markets and companies, but also human psychology and the investing behaviors that result.
If you study past cycles, understand their origins and remain alert for the next one, you will become keenly attuned to the investment environment as it changes. You’ll be aware and prepared while others get blindsided by unexpected events or fall victim to emotions like fear and greed.
By following Marks’s insights — drawn in part from his iconic memos over the years to Oaktree’s clients — you can master these recurring patterns to have the opportunity to improve your results.
We all know markets rise and fall, but when should you pull out, and when should you stay in? The answer is never black or white, but is best reached through a keen understanding of the reasons behind the rhythm of cycles. Confidence about where we are in a cycle comes when you learn the patterns of ups and downs that influence not just economics, markets and companies, but also human psychology and the investing behaviors that result.
If you study past cycles, understand their origins and remain alert for the next one, you will become keenly attuned to the investment environment as it changes. You’ll be aware and prepared while others get blindsided by unexpected events or fall victim to emotions like fear and greed.
By following Marks’s insights — drawn in part from his iconic memos over the years to Oaktree’s clients — you can master these recurring patterns to have the opportunity to improve your results.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
About the author
Howard Marks
13 books684 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. If adding books to this author, please use Howard^^Marks.
Howard Stanley Marks is an American investor and writer. He holds a B.S.Ec. degree cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a major in finance and an M.B.A. in accounting and marketing from the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago, where he received the George Hay Brown Prize. He is a CFA® charterholder and a Chartered Investment Counselor.
In 1995, he co-founded Oaktree Capital Management. From 1985 until 1995, he led the groups at The TCW Group, Inc. that were responsible for investments in distressed debt, high yield bonds, and convertible securities. He was also Chief Investment Officer for Domestic Fixed Income at TCW. Previously, he was with Citicorp Investment Management for 16 years, where from 1978 to 1985 he was Vice President and senior portfolio manager in charge of convertible and high yield securities. Between 1969 and 1978, he was an equity research analyst and, subsequently, Citicorp's Director of Research.
(source: http://www.oaktreecapital.com/people/...)
Howard Stanley Marks is an American investor and writer. He holds a B.S.Ec. degree cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a major in finance and an M.B.A. in accounting and marketing from the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago, where he received the George Hay Brown Prize. He is a CFA® charterholder and a Chartered Investment Counselor.
In 1995, he co-founded Oaktree Capital Management. From 1985 until 1995, he led the groups at The TCW Group, Inc. that were responsible for investments in distressed debt, high yield bonds, and convertible securities. He was also Chief Investment Officer for Domestic Fixed Income at TCW. Previously, he was with Citicorp Investment Management for 16 years, where from 1978 to 1985 he was Vice President and senior portfolio manager in charge of convertible and high yield securities. Between 1969 and 1978, he was an equity research analyst and, subsequently, Citicorp's Director of Research.
(source: http://www.oaktreecapital.com/people/...)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 373 reviews
October 20, 2018
Having read The Most Important Thing and underlining/noting something on every page, was very much looking forward to this.
Unfortunately it is repetitive, covers pretty basic economic theory, copies and pastes old material and at the end of every chapter you can’t really remember what you have read. Found myself battling to finish. Feels like this book has been forced as the general consensus is that we’re due a recession so it would be topical to write about economic cycles. Could probably have been an extended memo rather than a whole book. Despite this will probably still read his next book.
Unfortunately it is repetitive, covers pretty basic economic theory, copies and pastes old material and at the end of every chapter you can’t really remember what you have read. Found myself battling to finish. Feels like this book has been forced as the general consensus is that we’re due a recession so it would be topical to write about economic cycles. Could probably have been an extended memo rather than a whole book. Despite this will probably still read his next book.
December 10, 2018
Ever since I read The Most Important Thing, I've been an eager reader of everything Howard Marks has written. In over 20 years of running Oaktree, Marks has written hundreds of pages of memos, so much of the book (and many of his recent memos) are callbacks/quotes from these memos he wrote in the past. It's quite amazing to see how sharp of a sense he has in understanding where we are in the cycle. The book is quite repetitive, but a few key concepts are hammered clear:
1. History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme
2. What the wise man does in the beginning the fool does in the end
3. Each stage of the cycle not only precedes but causes the next stage in the cycle
4. Understanding where we are can significantly improve our odds of success even if we can't predict where we are going
5. The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the more prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs
6. It is incredibly difficult to go against the crowd
7. Capitulation not only happens in bear markets but also in bull markets (such as when investors like Stan Druckenmiller bought into the stock market bubble in the late '90s because they felt they couldn't miss out on making money on the upswing even though it was clearly a bubble)
1. History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme
2. What the wise man does in the beginning the fool does in the end
3. Each stage of the cycle not only precedes but causes the next stage in the cycle
4. Understanding where we are can significantly improve our odds of success even if we can't predict where we are going
5. The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the more prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs
6. It is incredibly difficult to go against the crowd
7. Capitulation not only happens in bear markets but also in bull markets (such as when investors like Stan Druckenmiller bought into the stock market bubble in the late '90s because they felt they couldn't miss out on making money on the upswing even though it was clearly a bubble)
January 6, 2021
Very interesting book to read during a downcycle. First few chapters give you the bulk of his points, gets a little repetitive at the end.
December 15, 2018
The holy grail of investing is market timing and its realization is about as elusive. This is a guide on how to master the financial market cycle, which is something in a way related to market timing, but still very, very, very different. The master (that word again…) corporate bond investor and investment writer Howard Marks at Oaktree Capital Management is among those whom I admire most in financial markets and his first book The Most Important Thing ranks among my top five all time investment books. In a way this is a slight problem when it comes to Mastering the Market Cycle. A classical advice to companies reporting their financials is to “under-promise and over-deliver” – the thing is that Marks’ first book drives up expectations for this one to a level it cannot fully live up to. But it’s still a really inspiring book on an important and under-discussed area that I will put to good use immediately.
A fundamental cornerstone for the author is that financial markets cannot be predicted with any practically usable precision in the short to medium term. This doesn’t mean that all market outcomes are equally probable at all times. By looking to current conditions and by this forming an opinion on where we are in the market cycle an investor, according to Marks, can tilt his portfolio to take advantage of what is more likely to happen in the years ahead. It’s both about what one thinks will happen depending on where one is and about the probability of this happening compared to other scenarios. If an investor is good at this game it should pay off in the long run and he tilts the odds for success in his favor. Prepare, don’t predict. I think he is totally spot-on in this respect.
Another key basis in mastering the cycle is to understand that things don’t just happen one thing after another in – unfortunately irregular – cyclical patterns. What happens in one stage of a market cycle is instead causing it to move on to the next stage. Cycles are chains of cause-and-effect relationships. After a pair of introductory chapters the main part of the book is devoted to describing a large set of interrelated and parallel such cycles: the economic cycle, the profit cycle, the risk attitude cycle, the credit cycle and so on. Underlying all these is the cyclical patterns in investor psychology – a topic clearly nearest to Marks’ heart. To a large extent Marks reads various psychological markers and positions himself in the cycle by these. Next comes one chapter that tries to assemble all the above cycle inputs into the full mosaic of the market cycle. The book finishes with a few concluding more practical chapters and a needlessly cut-and-paste type of summary.
It is honestly a luxury to have 50 years of hard won experience condensed in such a graspable format. Marks is a simply superb writer. Much like Warren Buffet the language can be deceptively simple, causing fairly complex issues to sound like child’s play. Make no mistake – this is investment thinking on the highest level. Still, compared to the high standards set by the author’s investment letters some passages of the book are a bit repetitive with their long and recurring chains of cause-and-effects and some newly written chapters that don’t build on previous investment letters, but are required to make an coherent story, are perhaps slightly less inspired than the others.
There are clearly others who have made contributions to the understanding of market cycles such as Hyman Minsky, various Austrian economists, the books from Marathon Asset Managed edited by Edward Chancellor plus many others. However, since Marks is so focused on reading non-fundamental and non-economic signposts I think the most complementary book might be Big Debt Crisis by the more Borg-ish Ray Dalio with his “economic machine”-concept, who obviously mostly zeros in on the central bank dominated cycle of monetary policy.
When it comes to books on market cycles this is a must read – but it could have been even better.
Mats Larsson, December 15, 2018
A fundamental cornerstone for the author is that financial markets cannot be predicted with any practically usable precision in the short to medium term. This doesn’t mean that all market outcomes are equally probable at all times. By looking to current conditions and by this forming an opinion on where we are in the market cycle an investor, according to Marks, can tilt his portfolio to take advantage of what is more likely to happen in the years ahead. It’s both about what one thinks will happen depending on where one is and about the probability of this happening compared to other scenarios. If an investor is good at this game it should pay off in the long run and he tilts the odds for success in his favor. Prepare, don’t predict. I think he is totally spot-on in this respect.
Another key basis in mastering the cycle is to understand that things don’t just happen one thing after another in – unfortunately irregular – cyclical patterns. What happens in one stage of a market cycle is instead causing it to move on to the next stage. Cycles are chains of cause-and-effect relationships. After a pair of introductory chapters the main part of the book is devoted to describing a large set of interrelated and parallel such cycles: the economic cycle, the profit cycle, the risk attitude cycle, the credit cycle and so on. Underlying all these is the cyclical patterns in investor psychology – a topic clearly nearest to Marks’ heart. To a large extent Marks reads various psychological markers and positions himself in the cycle by these. Next comes one chapter that tries to assemble all the above cycle inputs into the full mosaic of the market cycle. The book finishes with a few concluding more practical chapters and a needlessly cut-and-paste type of summary.
It is honestly a luxury to have 50 years of hard won experience condensed in such a graspable format. Marks is a simply superb writer. Much like Warren Buffet the language can be deceptively simple, causing fairly complex issues to sound like child’s play. Make no mistake – this is investment thinking on the highest level. Still, compared to the high standards set by the author’s investment letters some passages of the book are a bit repetitive with their long and recurring chains of cause-and-effects and some newly written chapters that don’t build on previous investment letters, but are required to make an coherent story, are perhaps slightly less inspired than the others.
There are clearly others who have made contributions to the understanding of market cycles such as Hyman Minsky, various Austrian economists, the books from Marathon Asset Managed edited by Edward Chancellor plus many others. However, since Marks is so focused on reading non-fundamental and non-economic signposts I think the most complementary book might be Big Debt Crisis by the more Borg-ish Ray Dalio with his “economic machine”-concept, who obviously mostly zeros in on the central bank dominated cycle of monetary policy.
When it comes to books on market cycles this is a must read – but it could have been even better.
Mats Larsson, December 15, 2018
October 6, 2021
I am a big fan of Howard Marks' memos and echo what Warren Buffet said: “When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they’re the first thing I open and read. I always learn something.” In this book, Howard synthesized his thoughts to analyze market cycles.
What are market cycles and why are they occurring?
Market cycles never stop occurring as our market is not completely efficient. Economies will wax and wane as consumers spend more or less, responding emotionally to economic factors or exogenous events, geopolitical or naturally occurring. Companies will anticipate a rosy future during the up cycle and thus over-expand facilities and inventories; these will become burdensome when the economy turns down. Providers of capital will be too generous when the economy's doing well, abetting over-expansion with cheap money, and then they will pull the reins too tight when things cease to look as good. Investors will overvalue companies when they are doing well and undervalue when things get difficult.
Market cycles occur under both upswings and downswings. In the book, Howard also dived into credit cycle and real estate cycle.
Over the cycles, markets fluctuate between greed and fear as investors swing between optimism and pessimism and their mood swing between euphoria and depression. Over this fluctuation, what the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.
Despite the significant uncertainties of market cycles along with market fluctuations, our role as an investor is to deal with prices of assets, assessing where they stand today and making judgments regarding how they will change in the future. Prices are affected primarily by developments in two areas: fundamentals (i.e., earnings and cash flows) and psychology.
So how do we beat the market? Here are three of Howard's secrete sauces:
Winning investment philosophy can be created through a combination of the following:
1. a technical education in accounting, finance, and economics
2. a view on how markets work
3. continuing to read
4. exchanging ideas with fellow investors
5. experience
Three ingredients to success include aggressiveness, timing and skill. If you have enough aggressiveness at the right time, you don't need that much skill.
Excessive risk tolerance contributes to the creation of danger, and the swing to excessive risk aversion depresses markets, creating some of the greatest buying opportunity!
I really enjoy Howard's writing style and reasoning. (Of course - Howard is a Boothie too!)
Howard even elevated the discussion to a more universal statement: success isn't always good. Success can change people, and usually not for the better. Success makes people think they are smart. That's fine as far as it goes, but there can also be negative ramifications. Success also tends to make people richer, and that lead to a reduction in the level of motivation. We always need to balance between humility and confidence. At this unusual moment of history and market, this book serves like an alert to help us act rationally.
What are market cycles and why are they occurring?
Market cycles never stop occurring as our market is not completely efficient. Economies will wax and wane as consumers spend more or less, responding emotionally to economic factors or exogenous events, geopolitical or naturally occurring. Companies will anticipate a rosy future during the up cycle and thus over-expand facilities and inventories; these will become burdensome when the economy turns down. Providers of capital will be too generous when the economy's doing well, abetting over-expansion with cheap money, and then they will pull the reins too tight when things cease to look as good. Investors will overvalue companies when they are doing well and undervalue when things get difficult.
Market cycles occur under both upswings and downswings. In the book, Howard also dived into credit cycle and real estate cycle.
Over the cycles, markets fluctuate between greed and fear as investors swing between optimism and pessimism and their mood swing between euphoria and depression. Over this fluctuation, what the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.
Despite the significant uncertainties of market cycles along with market fluctuations, our role as an investor is to deal with prices of assets, assessing where they stand today and making judgments regarding how they will change in the future. Prices are affected primarily by developments in two areas: fundamentals (i.e., earnings and cash flows) and psychology.
So how do we beat the market? Here are three of Howard's secrete sauces:
Winning investment philosophy can be created through a combination of the following:
1. a technical education in accounting, finance, and economics
2. a view on how markets work
3. continuing to read
4. exchanging ideas with fellow investors
5. experience
Three ingredients to success include aggressiveness, timing and skill. If you have enough aggressiveness at the right time, you don't need that much skill.
Excessive risk tolerance contributes to the creation of danger, and the swing to excessive risk aversion depresses markets, creating some of the greatest buying opportunity!
I really enjoy Howard's writing style and reasoning. (Of course - Howard is a Boothie too!)
Howard even elevated the discussion to a more universal statement: success isn't always good. Success can change people, and usually not for the better. Success makes people think they are smart. That's fine as far as it goes, but there can also be negative ramifications. Success also tends to make people richer, and that lead to a reduction in the level of motivation. We always need to balance between humility and confidence. At this unusual moment of history and market, this book serves like an alert to help us act rationally.
March 9, 2019
At first I had to question whether I was being fair in rating this book as low as I have. I've been in the financial services field for 35+ years and found the book simplistic and a "firm grasp of the obvious". Decided I had not been unfair since the book really appears to be a "cut and paste" job from his prior book, memos to clients and newsletters, the content is extremely repetitive and lacks economic and quantitative substance. You know that depth is missing when the graphs are are meant to be "conceptual" with no values along the axis and very few numerical values are given in the examples.
My approach has always stressed adequate liquidity and reserves, the use of fairly conservative, established high quality investment vehicles, and diversification among equities (including small, mid and large cap, international and domestic, etc.) fixed income and cash depending on the time horizon, financial objectives and risk tolerance. Periodic re-balancing is required and the mix is changed when objectives and circumstances change. This has served me well and while folks like Marks can beat themselves up trying to figure out where we are in a particular cycle or sub cycle the minuscule differential in earnings over time hardly seems worth the time or expense.
I did notice one very meaningful comment that he made as he was patting himself on the back for investing at the bottom of the financial crunch in 2008. He notes "...the good outcome we got wasn't the only outcome that could have been realized. I'm convinced that if Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke hadn't acted when they did, or if they had acted differently, or if their actions hadn't been as successful as they were, a financial meltdown and replay of the Great Depression could have occurred." Truly sometimes you can win the battle and lose the war.
So, for those that need to be reminded that, as Mark Twain supposedly said "History does not repeat itself but it does rhyme.", this can be a valuable resource.
My approach has always stressed adequate liquidity and reserves, the use of fairly conservative, established high quality investment vehicles, and diversification among equities (including small, mid and large cap, international and domestic, etc.) fixed income and cash depending on the time horizon, financial objectives and risk tolerance. Periodic re-balancing is required and the mix is changed when objectives and circumstances change. This has served me well and while folks like Marks can beat themselves up trying to figure out where we are in a particular cycle or sub cycle the minuscule differential in earnings over time hardly seems worth the time or expense.
I did notice one very meaningful comment that he made as he was patting himself on the back for investing at the bottom of the financial crunch in 2008. He notes "...the good outcome we got wasn't the only outcome that could have been realized. I'm convinced that if Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke hadn't acted when they did, or if they had acted differently, or if their actions hadn't been as successful as they were, a financial meltdown and replay of the Great Depression could have occurred." Truly sometimes you can win the battle and lose the war.
So, for those that need to be reminded that, as Mark Twain supposedly said "History does not repeat itself but it does rhyme.", this can be a valuable resource.
January 10, 2021
Premise is simple - Financial markets are cyclical, always have been and always will be. The author compares them to a pendulum!
Investor's ability to generate superior returns does not depend on predicting the future, but understanding the present better than the most. The author suggests two criteria for this -
- Identifying the intrinsic value of underlying assets (Quantitative)
- Understanding the investor psychology (Qualitative)
This book double clicks on one of the chapters from the author's 1st book - The Most Important Thing (2011) but gets repetitive at times while explaining complex concepts.
Investor's ability to generate superior returns does not depend on predicting the future, but understanding the present better than the most. The author suggests two criteria for this -
- Identifying the intrinsic value of underlying assets (Quantitative)
- Understanding the investor psychology (Qualitative)
This book double clicks on one of the chapters from the author's 1st book - The Most Important Thing (2011) but gets repetitive at times while explaining complex concepts.
March 17, 2019
Good insights on behavioural aspects of investing. The key takeaway is that nobody can really predict market cycles and macroeconomic variables but the art is to practice and learn volatility in investor behaviour and their changing attitude towards risk in various circumstances. The art of balancing emotional extremes defines a successful investor.
November 18, 2018
Did not deliver....
To be honest, I have read over sixty investment related books and my standards are high, especially from $30 books. The book was rather philosophical concerning market cycles with no actual infomation on how to spot possible extremes. I did not like the bragging on how good investor the writer was, I was outraged when he said the story when during the financial crisis he proposed to his clients to average down three times their losing positions just because it was theoretically solid economic wise... To sum up, it is a good read if this is your first book on cycles, if not, skip it for something else
To be honest, I have read over sixty investment related books and my standards are high, especially from $30 books. The book was rather philosophical concerning market cycles with no actual infomation on how to spot possible extremes. I did not like the bragging on how good investor the writer was, I was outraged when he said the story when during the financial crisis he proposed to his clients to average down three times their losing positions just because it was theoretically solid economic wise... To sum up, it is a good read if this is your first book on cycles, if not, skip it for something else
November 21, 2018
Mr. Marks acknowledges that macro forecasting is very difficult but that all he can do is to judge at which point you are in the cycle. He can never call market tops and bottoms or predict how far prices will fluctuate. But he believes that he can understand and empirically check fluctuations in investors’ attitudes toward risk.
Investors tend to put money into the market at tops, when everyone is optimistic, and take the money out at bottoms, when panic is widespread and as part of an herd mentality. The key to investment success is to do the opposite and keep one’s emotions—aggressiveness and defensiveness—in balance. Mr. Marks’s recipe for success is much like that of Mr. Buffett, who has said that investors should be “fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”
In his longest chapter, Mr. Marks explains how he was able to profit from the events leading up to the 2008 market meltdown. His analysis closely parallels the theories of the late economist Hyman Minsky. Good times lead to overly optimistic forecasts and a loosening of credit standards. Excessive debt leads to a wave of defaults at the first signs of economic turmoil and ultimately to a market meltdown. The Minsky theory is that stability itself breeds behavior that leads to instability. As he put it: “The longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.” Howard Marks also makes a very good point that investors should not try to only buy at the bottom, as the bottom is very difficult to spot.
Mr. Marks shows how good times from 2005 to 2008 caused investors to become so optimistic that they jettisoned caution and settled for skimpy premiums on risky investments. “The greatest source of investment risk,” he says, “is the belief that there is no risk.” When prices start to decline, investors panic and risk aversion goes from inadequate to excessive. Thus the reward for bearing risk is greatest just when people refuse to bear it. “The fluctuation—or inconstancy—in attitudes toward risk,” Mr. Marks writes, is “the cause or exacerbator” of cycles. At the bottom of the market lenders refuse to offer credit even to credit-worthy borrowers.
The volatility in the credit markets is equally evident in the real-estate and stock markets. The dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, when high-tech stocks sold at unprecedented triple-digit earnings multiples, and the real-estate bubble of the early 2000s bear witness to similar patterns of euphoria and depression.
Mastering the Market Cycle” is not a perfect book. It is overlong and tends to be repetitious. But it is wise. A careful reading can make us better investors and protect us from the all too frequent errors that ruin investment results.
Investors tend to put money into the market at tops, when everyone is optimistic, and take the money out at bottoms, when panic is widespread and as part of an herd mentality. The key to investment success is to do the opposite and keep one’s emotions—aggressiveness and defensiveness—in balance. Mr. Marks’s recipe for success is much like that of Mr. Buffett, who has said that investors should be “fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”
In his longest chapter, Mr. Marks explains how he was able to profit from the events leading up to the 2008 market meltdown. His analysis closely parallels the theories of the late economist Hyman Minsky. Good times lead to overly optimistic forecasts and a loosening of credit standards. Excessive debt leads to a wave of defaults at the first signs of economic turmoil and ultimately to a market meltdown. The Minsky theory is that stability itself breeds behavior that leads to instability. As he put it: “The longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.” Howard Marks also makes a very good point that investors should not try to only buy at the bottom, as the bottom is very difficult to spot.
Mr. Marks shows how good times from 2005 to 2008 caused investors to become so optimistic that they jettisoned caution and settled for skimpy premiums on risky investments. “The greatest source of investment risk,” he says, “is the belief that there is no risk.” When prices start to decline, investors panic and risk aversion goes from inadequate to excessive. Thus the reward for bearing risk is greatest just when people refuse to bear it. “The fluctuation—or inconstancy—in attitudes toward risk,” Mr. Marks writes, is “the cause or exacerbator” of cycles. At the bottom of the market lenders refuse to offer credit even to credit-worthy borrowers.
The volatility in the credit markets is equally evident in the real-estate and stock markets. The dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, when high-tech stocks sold at unprecedented triple-digit earnings multiples, and the real-estate bubble of the early 2000s bear witness to similar patterns of euphoria and depression.
Mastering the Market Cycle” is not a perfect book. It is overlong and tends to be repetitious. But it is wise. A careful reading can make us better investors and protect us from the all too frequent errors that ruin investment results.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 7, 2021
Anyone following my reviews at the moment will notice I'm on a bit of an investing deep dive.
Mastering the Market Cycle is in my opinion invaluable - but definitely an intermediate level book, best to read after getting some of the basics down about economics and investing.
The premise of the book is basically making sense of the short and long term trends of market cycles, acknowledging that while you can't predict the future or time the market perfectly, you can adequately prepare and understand the process to better yourself.
While the book doesn't contact direct financial advise per se, the knowledge imparted is more than valuable and helps explain some of the major players (e.g. Warren Buffett's) strategies on the market.
Mastering the Market Cycle is in my opinion invaluable - but definitely an intermediate level book, best to read after getting some of the basics down about economics and investing.
The premise of the book is basically making sense of the short and long term trends of market cycles, acknowledging that while you can't predict the future or time the market perfectly, you can adequately prepare and understand the process to better yourself.
While the book doesn't contact direct financial advise per se, the knowledge imparted is more than valuable and helps explain some of the major players (e.g. Warren Buffett's) strategies on the market.
March 22, 2024
Interview w/ Tim Ferriss Sept 2018
https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-ma...
Memo June 8, 2015 Risk Revisited Again
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
Ray Dalio's take on where we are in the 2019 cycle:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/help-p...
Howard Marks in SG favors caution 14 Jan 2019
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/comp...
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/comp...
CFA interview w/ Howard Marks
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/invest...
Indicators for recognizing mkt cycles?
Why would it be timeless & universal?
TED spread
https://www.macrotrends.net/1447/ted-...
VIX
http://www.indexq.org/wide.php
Are investors attitudes characterised by Fear of Losing $ (high risk aversion) vs FOMO?
Are credit markets tight or loose? How is the availability of financing? Is there a shortage of capital or is there too much $ chasing too few deals?
Is there an economic contraction? Defaults, bankruptcies & restructuring?
Are asset prices cheap or expensive?
Howard Marks memo "Expert Opinion" Jan 2017
Ask whether things are or are not in an extended state. Is psychology depressed, average or euphoric? Is the capital market shut tight, normal or unthinkingly generous?
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
Red Flags: "There They Go Again . . . Again" July 2017
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
"It is what it is" March 2006
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
See "Poor Man's Guide to Market Assessment"
Lunch w/ FT Nov 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/a2d6df4e-5...
"Taking the temperature" July 2023
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
Most profitable to apply defensive or aggressive cycle positioning at the extremes of the cycle => few bets, infrequent bets, big bets.
Interview w/ Mike Milken
https://youtu.be/Xbs5e5pcVYI
Ray Dalio's bubble indicator
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-sto...
PS
This worked leading to the COVID-19 pandemic
Memo "Calibrating" 8 Apr 2020
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
2020-21 COVID-19 Trillion Dollar Triage bubble
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
https://twitter.com/SanfordChee/statu...
Michael Mauboussin, Cost of Capital and Capital Allocation - Investment in the Era of “Easy Money”, 28 Feb 2024
https://www.morganstanley.com/im/publ...
https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-ma...
Memo June 8, 2015 Risk Revisited Again
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
Ray Dalio's take on where we are in the 2019 cycle:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/help-p...
Howard Marks in SG favors caution 14 Jan 2019
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/comp...
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/comp...
CFA interview w/ Howard Marks
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/invest...
Indicators for recognizing mkt cycles?
Why would it be timeless & universal?
TED spread
https://www.macrotrends.net/1447/ted-...
VIX
http://www.indexq.org/wide.php
Are investors attitudes characterised by Fear of Losing $ (high risk aversion) vs FOMO?
Are credit markets tight or loose? How is the availability of financing? Is there a shortage of capital or is there too much $ chasing too few deals?
Is there an economic contraction? Defaults, bankruptcies & restructuring?
Are asset prices cheap or expensive?
Howard Marks memo "Expert Opinion" Jan 2017
Ask whether things are or are not in an extended state. Is psychology depressed, average or euphoric? Is the capital market shut tight, normal or unthinkingly generous?
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
Red Flags: "There They Go Again . . . Again" July 2017
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
"It is what it is" March 2006
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
See "Poor Man's Guide to Market Assessment"
Lunch w/ FT Nov 2022
https://www.ft.com/content/a2d6df4e-5...
"Taking the temperature" July 2023
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
Most profitable to apply defensive or aggressive cycle positioning at the extremes of the cycle => few bets, infrequent bets, big bets.
Interview w/ Mike Milken
https://youtu.be/Xbs5e5pcVYI
Ray Dalio's bubble indicator
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-sto...
PS
This worked leading to the COVID-19 pandemic
Memo "Calibrating" 8 Apr 2020
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
2020-21 COVID-19 Trillion Dollar Triage bubble
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/d...
https://twitter.com/SanfordChee/statu...
Michael Mauboussin, Cost of Capital and Capital Allocation - Investment in the Era of “Easy Money”, 28 Feb 2024
https://www.morganstanley.com/im/publ...
February 14, 2020
The most fascinating aspect of considering Marks' take on market cycles is how inevitable they are. I think he does a wonderful job in explaining the causal relationships between elements of the cycle -- both from a psychological and an economic perspective. I think the most interesting takeaway is that whilst cycles may be inevitable by their nature they are extremely difficult to predict and thus take advantage of.
I, as most people are, find myself beset by hindsight bias. How did I not see the GFC racing towards us like a freight train, the collapse of bitcoin from its 2017 highs was a certainty. Of course, each one of these follows the same patterns of euphoria and risk-tolerance outlined in the book. So having deconstructed these financial cycles so expertly I turn my mind to the today.... and I think... and think... and think... yet, I can't see it. Surely no one could be fooled by crypto craze so soon again, yes sharemarkets are at an all time high, but it's not as if investors are buying tech stocks at infinite p/e ratios. I often have a sense that the past held all the opportunities, the obvious booms, and predictable crashes.
But, of course, as anyone who has read the book or knows anything about psychology or economics this is not true. Whilst I may be blind to the current cycle, I'm sure I will look back in future years and wonder how we could have not seen X coming, as Y was clear for all to see.
As Marks' elucidates through the quotes of Galbraith finance has nothing if not an extreme brevity of memory. I can certainly say that through reading this brilliant book I have at the very least made strides to lengthen my own financial memory and sharpen my financial scepticism the next time someone utters the four worst words in the world, "this time it's different."
I, as most people are, find myself beset by hindsight bias. How did I not see the GFC racing towards us like a freight train, the collapse of bitcoin from its 2017 highs was a certainty. Of course, each one of these follows the same patterns of euphoria and risk-tolerance outlined in the book. So having deconstructed these financial cycles so expertly I turn my mind to the today.... and I think... and think... and think... yet, I can't see it. Surely no one could be fooled by crypto craze so soon again, yes sharemarkets are at an all time high, but it's not as if investors are buying tech stocks at infinite p/e ratios. I often have a sense that the past held all the opportunities, the obvious booms, and predictable crashes.
But, of course, as anyone who has read the book or knows anything about psychology or economics this is not true. Whilst I may be blind to the current cycle, I'm sure I will look back in future years and wonder how we could have not seen X coming, as Y was clear for all to see.
As Marks' elucidates through the quotes of Galbraith finance has nothing if not an extreme brevity of memory. I can certainly say that through reading this brilliant book I have at the very least made strides to lengthen my own financial memory and sharpen my financial scepticism the next time someone utters the four worst words in the world, "this time it's different."
December 28, 2018
I read this book thanks to Blinkist:
The key message in these blinks:
The cycles of markets, economies and individual companies follow a particular pattern: in the long term, they tend to grow, following what’s called a secular trend. In the short term, however, they fluctuate a great deal, oscillating around this secular trend. The superior investor is someone who pays attention to these cycles, adjusting his stance and positioning his portfolio so as to benefit from them.
Actionable advice:
Read, read, read!
Many people in the financial world remain in a sort of bubble. They pay attention only to the media and financial reports, rarely reading books that fall outside their field. You can learn a lot about cycles by reading history books – just consider the massive cycle that the Roman Empire went through – or even by reading novels. So don’t limit yourself to a particular genre, and keep an eye out for applicable lessons!
What to read next:
The Most Important Thing, by Howard Marks
If you found these insights on market cycles from veteran investor Howard Marks intriguing, then you might be interested in the blinks to his first book, The Most Important Thing. They lay out the investment philosophy he developed during his 40 years in the market. As you now know, part of this philosophy involves resisting market trends in order to increase potential gains and lower risk.
However, these blinks take a broader view, encouraging aspiring and established investors to pay attention to a range of factors in the investment environment. So if you’re ready to take your market savvy to the next level, head over to the blinks to The Most Important Thing.
The key message in these blinks:
The cycles of markets, economies and individual companies follow a particular pattern: in the long term, they tend to grow, following what’s called a secular trend. In the short term, however, they fluctuate a great deal, oscillating around this secular trend. The superior investor is someone who pays attention to these cycles, adjusting his stance and positioning his portfolio so as to benefit from them.
Actionable advice:
Read, read, read!
Many people in the financial world remain in a sort of bubble. They pay attention only to the media and financial reports, rarely reading books that fall outside their field. You can learn a lot about cycles by reading history books – just consider the massive cycle that the Roman Empire went through – or even by reading novels. So don’t limit yourself to a particular genre, and keep an eye out for applicable lessons!
What to read next:
The Most Important Thing, by Howard Marks
If you found these insights on market cycles from veteran investor Howard Marks intriguing, then you might be interested in the blinks to his first book, The Most Important Thing. They lay out the investment philosophy he developed during his 40 years in the market. As you now know, part of this philosophy involves resisting market trends in order to increase potential gains and lower risk.
However, these blinks take a broader view, encouraging aspiring and established investors to pay attention to a range of factors in the investment environment. So if you’re ready to take your market savvy to the next level, head over to the blinks to The Most Important Thing.
June 29, 2018
I received this book, for free, in exchange for an honest review.
This book has an important message and one that is rarely stated.
The book does and excellent job in communicating it and I think it has been thoroughly drilled into my head. That being said, I already agreed with him prior to reading this book as I imagine will most contrarian minded investors. As such I didn't get that much out of this book. I was hoping for more quantitative details on how to detect cycles. For example, I was hoping that things like Market Cap to GDP would be brought up and explained (as I don't get them as much as I'd like). There were plenty of details but they felt subjective.
The book was also both repetitive and poorly edited. The latter is hopefully forgivable as I read an advanced copy. I just hope most of the repeated text (seemingly cut and paste from other sections of the book) gets edited out.
All in all a necessary book for the average investor and the one I'd probably recommend to friends/family. On the other hand, if you have paid attention/read up on investment I'd hope you knew his point already (actually I hope you never get it as this is my one chance to make money investing).
This book has an important message and one that is rarely stated.
The book does and excellent job in communicating it and I think it has been thoroughly drilled into my head. That being said, I already agreed with him prior to reading this book as I imagine will most contrarian minded investors. As such I didn't get that much out of this book. I was hoping for more quantitative details on how to detect cycles. For example, I was hoping that things like Market Cap to GDP would be brought up and explained (as I don't get them as much as I'd like). There were plenty of details but they felt subjective.
The book was also both repetitive and poorly edited. The latter is hopefully forgivable as I read an advanced copy. I just hope most of the repeated text (seemingly cut and paste from other sections of the book) gets edited out.
All in all a necessary book for the average investor and the one I'd probably recommend to friends/family. On the other hand, if you have paid attention/read up on investment I'd hope you knew his point already (actually I hope you never get it as this is my one chance to make money investing).
October 26, 2019
A great book to read. Explained useful things in very easy to understand way. I think this book kind of gives a false sense of confidence that one can reliably know how to position themselves for what's going to come next, but the way of thinking it encourages is outstanding & terrific.
While the method of knowing and understanding market cycle seems to work as described, I rarely think mere mortals who don't get the first look at the deals happening in the market place will have enough edge to make a reliable bet as to what's coming ahead. As he has said that the markets behave according to the investor psychology and thus the more people's deals you see in the market, the better information you gain by seeing the terms of the notes that are being issued. This book is good and useful after you are a full-time practitioner and manage more assets than just your personal portfolio.
While the method of knowing and understanding market cycle seems to work as described, I rarely think mere mortals who don't get the first look at the deals happening in the market place will have enough edge to make a reliable bet as to what's coming ahead. As he has said that the markets behave according to the investor psychology and thus the more people's deals you see in the market, the better information you gain by seeing the terms of the notes that are being issued. This book is good and useful after you are a full-time practitioner and manage more assets than just your personal portfolio.
August 15, 2019
Ups are followed by downs is the essence of this book, “for that which a man wishes, for that he will believe” is an amazing quote by Charlie Munger looking into human nature. Since the markets are based on human emotions, understanding the tendencies that lead to bad investing is very important. This book delves deep onto market cycles and its importance in making or breaking portfolios. Chapters such as the nature of cycles, the real estate cycle and cycle positioning are very interesting.
September 11, 2019
El autor es Howard Marks, un conocido inversor, fundador de Oaktree Capital Management, una firma conocida por invertir en valores con dificultades.
Si nuestro objetivo es entender los ciclos —como ejercicio intelectual o para sacar beneficio—, en lugar de leer este libro recomiendo leer Big Debt Crises o How The Economic Machine Works de Ray Dalio junto a algún autor austriaco. Marks no profundiza apenas en los temas que expone en su libro. No nos habla apenas del papel de la banca en la creación de crédito —y por tanto de los ciclos—, ni de los factores exógenos —la intervención de los gobiernos y los bancos centrales—. En la materia de psicología también lo encuentro bastante cojo. En cualquier caso, aquí van algunas de sus afirmaciones:
Tener éxito como inversor es como escoger el boleto ganador en una lotería. Los dos están determinados por un boleto (el outcome) sacado de un bol de boletos (el rango de posibles outcomes). En los dos casos un boleto es escogido entre todas las posibilidades. Los inversores inteligentes son los que tienen un mejor entendimiento de qué tickets están en el bol, por ende entienden si deben participar en la lotería o no. En otras palabras, los inversores inteligentes no saben lo que vendrá en el futuro —como todo el mundo— pero tienen un entendimiento superior de las tendencias futuras.
Las probabilidades cuando la posición del ciclo cambia. Si no ajustamos nuestro portfolio a estos cambios, estamos siendo pasivos y nuestro retorno será medio. Si aplicamos nuestro conocimiento sobre los ciclos, estamos mejorando nuestras probabilidades. Según Marks, la mejor forma de optimizar este posicionamiento es decidiendo el balance adecuado entre agresividad y defensividad.
Los ciclos suben y bajan —Marks los entiende como la parte económica— y los péndulos suben y bajan —Marks los entiende como la parte psicológica—. Estas variaciones toman muchas formas pero las razones subyacentes tienen mucho en común y son consistentes en el tiempo. Los ciclos a corto plazo están fuertemente influidos por la psicología de las personas.
Los ciclos oscilan sobre un punto medio (precios correctos). Los extremos del ciclo son aberraciones o excesos que eventualmente vuelven al punto medio (regresión a la media). El punto medio ejerce una fuerza magnética que lleva a los extremos hacia un punto correcto pero normalmente la tendencia no se para ahí sino que oscila hacia el otro extremo.
Los factores que nos sirven como señal en todas las burbujas o crashes suelen ser:
* Excesivo optimismo.
* Perdida de aversión al riesgo.
* Mercados capitales extremadamente generosos.
* Financiación extremadamente arriesgada por parte de todos los participantes.
Los ciclos tienen un mayor potencial de causar un desastre cuanto más se alejan del punto medio.
Los ciclos no deben ser vistos como una mera sucesión de eventos sino como una cadena de causas y efectos. Sólo podemos entender el punto en el que estamos analizando los eventos pasados.
Los ciclos no están solamente incluidos por procesos mecánicos o científicos. Si lo estuvieran, serían mucho más fáciles de predecir y menos profitables. Una de los factores que más afectan a los ciclos es la psicología humana (los excesos psicológicos).
El inversor inteligente resiste influencias externas y analiza los datos sin dejarse llevar por la exuberancia irracional.
Marks afirma que es clave estudiar como los inversores valoran el riesgo en cualquier punto de tiempo para conocer en qué entorno económico nos encontramos.
Las épocas doradas hacen que la gente sea más optimista, sea menos precavida y busquen inversiones más arriesgadas. Esta combinación de factores hace que el precio de los assets con mayor riesgo crezca relativo a los assets de menor riesgo. Por ende, no debería sorprendernos que las peores inversiones se hagan en tiempos buenos.
En tiempos menos buenos, su aversión al riesgo cambia al otro extremo. Los precios comienzan a bajar y la gente vende en el punto bajo. Esta experiencia negativa hace que consideren la acción de inversión como algo arriesgado y que su aversión al riesgo sea extrema.
Durante los pánicos, la gente quiere asegurarse de no perder el principal. Este es el momento en el que surgen las mejores oportunidades de compra. A precios tan bajos, el margen de seguridad incrementa rápidamente.
Entender cómo los inversores se sienten respecto al riesgo, quizá es el punto más clave de nuestra inversión. La excesiva tolerancia al riesgo contribuye al incremento de peligro en la inversión y el cambio a la excesiva aversión al riesgo crea algunas de las oportunidades de inversión más valiosas. El inversor inteligente reconoce este patrón y actúa como contrarian.
Los cambios en los mercados de capitales son de extrema importancia para entender los ciclos. La prosperidad aumenta el crédito, lo que lleva a créditos con mucho riesgo de impago, lo que lleva a grandes pérdidas, lo que lleva a reducir el crédito, lo que lleva al fin de la prosperidad and so on and so on.
Entender lo que ha llevado al mercado al extremo sólo lo podemos hacer cuando tenemos en cuenta los eventos en el ciclo de crédito en meses o años pasados. La mayoría de bull markets son creados por una tendencia a conceder facilidades en el crédito. La mayoría de colapsos son creados por una tendencia a endurecer las condiciones del crédito.
Salir del mercado después de una tendencia bajista —y así no participar en la corrección— es el pecado capital.
El objetivo del inversor es posicionar su capital para beneficiarse de los futuros acontecimientos. Debe ser más agresivo cuando el mercado va a subir y más defensivo cuando va a caer. La clave para posicionarse es entender el péndulo psicológico y los ciclos.
Si nuestro objetivo es entender los ciclos —como ejercicio intelectual o para sacar beneficio—, en lugar de leer este libro recomiendo leer Big Debt Crises o How The Economic Machine Works de Ray Dalio junto a algún autor austriaco. Marks no profundiza apenas en los temas que expone en su libro. No nos habla apenas del papel de la banca en la creación de crédito —y por tanto de los ciclos—, ni de los factores exógenos —la intervención de los gobiernos y los bancos centrales—. En la materia de psicología también lo encuentro bastante cojo. En cualquier caso, aquí van algunas de sus afirmaciones:
Tener éxito como inversor es como escoger el boleto ganador en una lotería. Los dos están determinados por un boleto (el outcome) sacado de un bol de boletos (el rango de posibles outcomes). En los dos casos un boleto es escogido entre todas las posibilidades. Los inversores inteligentes son los que tienen un mejor entendimiento de qué tickets están en el bol, por ende entienden si deben participar en la lotería o no. En otras palabras, los inversores inteligentes no saben lo que vendrá en el futuro —como todo el mundo— pero tienen un entendimiento superior de las tendencias futuras.
Las probabilidades cuando la posición del ciclo cambia. Si no ajustamos nuestro portfolio a estos cambios, estamos siendo pasivos y nuestro retorno será medio. Si aplicamos nuestro conocimiento sobre los ciclos, estamos mejorando nuestras probabilidades. Según Marks, la mejor forma de optimizar este posicionamiento es decidiendo el balance adecuado entre agresividad y defensividad.
Los ciclos suben y bajan —Marks los entiende como la parte económica— y los péndulos suben y bajan —Marks los entiende como la parte psicológica—. Estas variaciones toman muchas formas pero las razones subyacentes tienen mucho en común y son consistentes en el tiempo. Los ciclos a corto plazo están fuertemente influidos por la psicología de las personas.
Los ciclos oscilan sobre un punto medio (precios correctos). Los extremos del ciclo son aberraciones o excesos que eventualmente vuelven al punto medio (regresión a la media). El punto medio ejerce una fuerza magnética que lleva a los extremos hacia un punto correcto pero normalmente la tendencia no se para ahí sino que oscila hacia el otro extremo.
Los factores que nos sirven como señal en todas las burbujas o crashes suelen ser:
* Excesivo optimismo.
* Perdida de aversión al riesgo.
* Mercados capitales extremadamente generosos.
* Financiación extremadamente arriesgada por parte de todos los participantes.
Los ciclos tienen un mayor potencial de causar un desastre cuanto más se alejan del punto medio.
Los ciclos no deben ser vistos como una mera sucesión de eventos sino como una cadena de causas y efectos. Sólo podemos entender el punto en el que estamos analizando los eventos pasados.
Los ciclos no están solamente incluidos por procesos mecánicos o científicos. Si lo estuvieran, serían mucho más fáciles de predecir y menos profitables. Una de los factores que más afectan a los ciclos es la psicología humana (los excesos psicológicos).
El inversor inteligente resiste influencias externas y analiza los datos sin dejarse llevar por la exuberancia irracional.
Marks afirma que es clave estudiar como los inversores valoran el riesgo en cualquier punto de tiempo para conocer en qué entorno económico nos encontramos.
Las épocas doradas hacen que la gente sea más optimista, sea menos precavida y busquen inversiones más arriesgadas. Esta combinación de factores hace que el precio de los assets con mayor riesgo crezca relativo a los assets de menor riesgo. Por ende, no debería sorprendernos que las peores inversiones se hagan en tiempos buenos.
En tiempos menos buenos, su aversión al riesgo cambia al otro extremo. Los precios comienzan a bajar y la gente vende en el punto bajo. Esta experiencia negativa hace que consideren la acción de inversión como algo arriesgado y que su aversión al riesgo sea extrema.
Durante los pánicos, la gente quiere asegurarse de no perder el principal. Este es el momento en el que surgen las mejores oportunidades de compra. A precios tan bajos, el margen de seguridad incrementa rápidamente.
Entender cómo los inversores se sienten respecto al riesgo, quizá es el punto más clave de nuestra inversión. La excesiva tolerancia al riesgo contribuye al incremento de peligro en la inversión y el cambio a la excesiva aversión al riesgo crea algunas de las oportunidades de inversión más valiosas. El inversor inteligente reconoce este patrón y actúa como contrarian.
Los cambios en los mercados de capitales son de extrema importancia para entender los ciclos. La prosperidad aumenta el crédito, lo que lleva a créditos con mucho riesgo de impago, lo que lleva a grandes pérdidas, lo que lleva a reducir el crédito, lo que lleva al fin de la prosperidad and so on and so on.
Entender lo que ha llevado al mercado al extremo sólo lo podemos hacer cuando tenemos en cuenta los eventos en el ciclo de crédito en meses o años pasados. La mayoría de bull markets son creados por una tendencia a conceder facilidades en el crédito. La mayoría de colapsos son creados por una tendencia a endurecer las condiciones del crédito.
Salir del mercado después de una tendencia bajista —y así no participar en la corrección— es el pecado capital.
El objetivo del inversor es posicionar su capital para beneficiarse de los futuros acontecimientos. Debe ser más agresivo cuando el mercado va a subir y más defensivo cuando va a caer. La clave para posicionarse es entender el péndulo psicológico y los ciclos.
September 4, 2019
เนื้อหาเหมือนตำราเศรษฐศาสตร์ ค่อนข้างเบสิก และไม่ค่อยมีเทคนิคหรือเคล็ดลับในการลงทุนให้เก็บเท่าไรเลย
January 17, 2020
As the title implies, the content of this book isn’t very exciting, but the underlying principles that Marks discusses are worth the read. The book is easy to read and is a comprehensive discussion on the strategies that Marks employs at Oaktree Capital — leading to their storied success. It gave me a new view to see markets through and I fully intend to take Marks’ approach into my own investment decisions.
March 1, 2021
This book is a must read . Easy to understand , not technical and very insightful . There is some repetition but only to solidify the main idea which is that markets will continue to cycle and if u ever think that will ever change then u are absolutely wrong ! Knowing where u are in the cycle is the key to leveraging opportunities that will happen only 4-5 Times in ur life span . Otherwise u are just better off staying in the market for ever and not bothering with watching it.
July 2, 2021
HM is an insightful practitioner of markets and uncertainty. His market performance speaks for itself and he is often described as 'legendary' on the media. However, I find his book much underwhelming. Its shortcomings are mostly in rigor and example. Though repetitive and full of clichés at times, I came to appreciate that. A plus for the book are the sporadic mentions of other iconic works and authors on the subject.
January 5, 2021
I was pretty underwhelmed by this book. So much of it comes down to the concept that there is a business cycle and the best time to buy invest is not at the top of the cycle. That pretty much sums up the majority of this book's content. That idea gets restated dozens of different ways but it's all the same basic idea.
April 13, 2021
2.5/5. I usually love reading books and memos from Howard Marks, but I think the book largely missed the mark. I had 2 major issues with the book: (1) I didn't like the balance between length and properly proving a point - the book leaned far towards the former and was very wordy at times. (2) The book spends a lot of time covering basics that I feel people with some knowledge of econ/business could skip. That said, the last chapter is a great summary and I enjoyed Chapters 8, 12, 13, 14, and 15.
June 19, 2021
A bit repetitive, but hammers home the most important points from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor.
January 1, 2024
A surprisingly easy read. Marks could've easily written an overly technical roadmap to master market cycles, but he clearly outlines the patterns that even the novice investor can recognize. This could be a book that I reread in the future once I've earned the right to position my portfolio against where we are in the market cycle. For now, I'll stick with dollar cost-averaging - just keep buying :)
December 27, 2019
Great wisdom, without doubt. Oh Master you're amazing. You Howard. I LOVE YOU. How can anybody write these 2 super amazing books on investing! Thank you Howard. You are The Most Important Thing in my life.
October 13, 2019
Must-read for every investor.
April 22, 2020
Excelente libro
August 31, 2020
3.5/5.0. “Tarih tekerrürden ibarettir.”
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