🇺🇸 English

Howard Marks's Principles

Overview

Known for credit investing discipline and widely read market memos.

Style

Credit cycles, distressed debt, second-level thinking

Firm

Oaktree Capital Management

Period

1946-

Howard Marks

Principles

Repeatable rules that beginners can study and adapt.

Applicable principles

The greatest risk often appears when people believe risk is gone.

Understand credit cycles before buying risky assets.

Pricing must compensate for the probability of loss.

Second-level thinking helps avoid expensive consensus.

Turn these principles into a pre-investment checklist. If an idea cannot pass the checklist, staying out is often better than forcing action.