How Oaktree's Howard Marks Spots a Market Bubble

Summary

Podcast Summary: Odd Lots – "How Oaktree's Howard Marks Spots a Market Bubble"

Introduction

In this episode of Bloomberg's "Odd Lots," hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracee Alloway engage in a compelling conversation with Howard Marks, the co-founder and co-chair of Oaktree Capital Management. Released on January 27, 2025, the episode delves into Marks' expertise in identifying market bubbles, drawing from his extensive experience and historical insights. The discussion provides listeners with a deep understanding of market dynamics, behavioral indicators of bubbles, and strategic investment approaches.

Historical Context: The 1990s and the Dot-Com Bubble

Howard Marks begins by reflecting on the investment landscape of the 1990s, describing it as a "placid period" for credit investors. He highlights the exceptional performance of the stock market during this decade, noting, “the best decade in history, I think, for stocks. And The S&P 500 rose an average of 20% a year for 10 years, which is an astronomical, an astronomical accomplishment” ([02:28]).

Marks contrasts this period with the TMT (Tech, Media, and Telecom) bubble, often referred to as the Internet bubble, which peaked around 1998-2000. He emphasizes that while the decade was generally calm, significant events like the devaluation of the Russian ruble and the meltdown of Long Term Capital Management introduced volatility, albeit in isolated instances ([02:44]).

The "Bubble.com" Memo: Recognizing Excessive Market Conditions

A central theme of the conversation revolves around Marks' "bubble.com" memo, published on January 2, 2000. When Tracee Alloway inquires about the memo's timing and content, Marks clarifies, “it does not predict the bubble and it does not say the market's going to collapse. All it did is describe the current conditions” ([07:48]). He distinguishes between forecasting and describing market conditions, asserting that understanding "where we are" is crucial for informed investment decisions.

Marks shares his approach to assessing market conditions, emphasizing the importance of patience and the recognition that predictions are inherently uncertain. He recalls, “in the investment business, there's no place for certainty...you should never be certain that you're right” ([05:18]). This philosophy underscores his meticulous method of evaluating market behaviors rather than relying solely on numerical data.

Behavioral Indicators vs. Numerical Metrics

When discussing the identification of market bubbles, Marks differentiates between numerical indicators and behavioral or cultural markers. He states, “99%, what you called cultural markers... and 1% math” ([11:03]). According to Marks, behavior plays a more significant role in signaling market extremes. He references his "Poor Man's Guide to Market Assessment," which categorizes behaviors to assess the market's temperature—whether it’s too hot or too cold ([14:14]).

Marks elaborates on how behavioral signs, such as widespread optimism and the dismissal of caution, are more telling of a bubble than elevated PE ratios alone. He explains that during true bubbles, there's a "willing suspension of disbelief," where investors ignore traditional risk assessments in favor of the fear of missing out (FOMO) ([27:25]).

Current Market Conditions: AI and Tech Enthusiasm

Transitioning to the present, Marks assesses the current market climate, particularly the fervor surrounding AI-related stocks. He observes that while numerical indicators like elevated PE ratios in the S&P 500 suggest high valuations, the behavioral aspects indicative of a bubble are not fully present. Marks remarks, “I just don't see those psychological or behavioral aspects today” ([31:00]).

He compares the current AI boom to the dot-com era, cautioning against unbridled optimism. Marks points out that excessive enthusiasm without substantial behavioral signs may not yet constitute a bubble. However, he advises vigilance, warning against "lottery thinking," where investors bet on high-risk ventures with the hope of massive returns ([32:03]).

Strategic Investment Approaches: Offensive and Defensive Positions

Marks discusses the strategic axis of aggressive versus defensive investment behaviors. He explains that an investor's typical stance should align with their personal risk tolerance and financial goals. However, he also advocates for adjusting this stance based on evolving market conditions. Marks shares his experience during the 2008 financial crisis, where proactive measures and prepared "dry powder" allowed Oaktree to capitalize on distressed debt opportunities when others were retreating ([45:47]).

He emphasizes the importance of having committed capital ready for investment during downturns, highlighting the success of Oaktree’s approach in raising substantial funds in anticipation of market shifts. Marks states, “we had commitments, we were sure we could draw and so we could plunge in” ([45:47]).

The Aftermath of Bubbles and Industry Evolution

Reflecting on past market crashes, Marks explains how the bursting of the Nifty 50 bubble led to significant changes in the financial industry. The experience demonstrated that even traditionally "safe" investments could result in substantial losses, prompting a shift towards more diversified and risk-aware investment strategies. Marks underscores that successful investing is less about selecting inherently good assets and more about purchasing assets at fair prices relative to their risk ([44:29]).

He also touches upon recent developments, such as the "Sea Change" memo, which discusses the end of the era of ultra-low interest rates and the transition to a more stable, higher-rate environment. Marks notes that this shift has profound implications for borrowing costs and investment strategies, indicating that the full impact is yet to be felt in the broader economy ([49:49]).

Conclusion

The episode offers a rich exploration of Howard Marks' insights into market bubbles, blending historical analysis with contemporary market evaluations. Marks' emphasis on behavioral indicators over purely numerical metrics provides a nuanced framework for investors seeking to navigate complex financial landscapes. His experiences and strategic approaches underscore the importance of preparedness, adaptability, and disciplined investment practices in the face of evolving market conditions.

Notable Quotes

• "The best decade in history, I think, for stocks. And The S&P 500 rose an average of 20% a year for 10 years, which is an astronomical, an astronomical accomplishment." — Howard Marks ([02:44])

• "In the investment business, there's no place for certainty. And Mark Twain said, it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for certain that just ain't true." — Howard Marks ([05:18])

• "99%, what you called cultural markers... and 1% math." — Howard Marks ([11:03])

• "A bubble is a temporary mania in which people are so agog at things that they throw over all discipline, all caution." — Howard Marks ([27:25])

• "The real hallmark of a bubble is when people say it's so great... there's no price too high." — Howard Marks ([31:00])

• "Successful investing doesn't come from buying good things, but from buying things well." — Howard Marks ([45:47])

• "We never know where we're going, but we sure as hell ought to know where we are." — Howard Marks ([07:48])

Final Thoughts

Joe Weisenthal and Tracee Alloway effectively navigate a deep and insightful discussion with Howard Marks, extracting valuable lessons on market behavior, investment strategy, and the identification of bubbles. For investors and enthusiasts alike, this episode serves as a crucial guide to understanding the delicate balance between market enthusiasm and prudent investment practices.

Transcript

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[Tracee Alloway]

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracee Alloway.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

And I'm Joe Wiesenthal.

[Tracee Alloway]

So, Jo, we recently recorded an episode with Kevin Muir where we were talking about concentration in stock indices and I guess historical analogies with the dot com bubble of the 2000s. And I know that this is one of your favorite subjects. I think I said it was like your own personal catnip.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

That's right.

[Tracee Alloway]

And so I thought, you know what? I did not get Joe a Christmas present this year. In fact, I don't think I've ever gotten you a Christmas present. But wouldn't it be nice if I got him a whole episode where we're talking to one of the world's most famous investors who correctly called the Internet bubble.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Let's do it. Let's jump right into it. No more intro. I'm so thrilled about this conversation. Let's just get it started.

[Tracee Alloway]

All right. I will also admit this is a belated Christmas present to myself as well. So we are going to be speaking with Howard Marks. He is of course the co founder and co chair of Oaktree Capital Management. He's famously a credit investor, but he did call, as I said, the dot com bubble correctly. So Howard, thank you so much for coming on the show.

[Howard Marks]

It's a pleasure to be with you, Tracy.

[Tracee Alloway]

And also Joe, maybe just to begin with, give us some context around what the early 2000s, late 1990s were like for you. What were you doing and what were you observing at that time?

[Howard Marks]

Well, the 1990s were a slow time for credit investors. We're kind of opportunistic. And bargain hunters. And bargains come from dislocations and, you know, people feeling urgency to get out of positions. And the 90s were generally a placid period, except for the. Around 98, we had devaluation of the Russian ruble and a Southeast Asian crisis, and we had the meltdown of a highly levered hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management. But those were all kind of idiosyncratic events, not macro and not broad based. Other than that, the investment environment was placid. Importantly, it was the best decade in history, I think, for stocks. And The S&P 500 rose an average of 20% a year for 10 years, which is an astronomical, an astronomical accomplishment. If you, if you rise 20% a year for 10 years, I would guess that something goes up roughly eight times in 10 years, which is incredible. And of course, this was all powered by the, what we called the TMT bubble, Tech, media and telecom bubble, some people call it the Internet bubble, which prevailed in 98, 99 and into 2000. So it was hot times. Not for credit investors, hot times for equity investors.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

You know, you recently wrote a memo that called back to a memo that you had written basically exactly 25 years ago. So right at the start of 2000, of course the dot com bubble or the TMT bubble peaked, I think it was in March of that year. You got the timing right. And that's sort of extraordinary because there were a lot of people probably starting in 1998, then 1999, maybe even earlier. Like, this is ridiculous. There's all these companies, they literally don't have a penny in earnings or perhaps don't even have a penny in revenue. They just have the name.com in their name. They IPO at crazy prices. What is the experience like? I mean, that was very fortunate timing on your part, but there were a lot of people who, you know, were famously correct and early and they had clients abandoned them and so forth, and they thought it was like, oh, you don't understand the new paradigm, et cetera. What's that like in the years as it feels like the market is becoming increasingly untethered from any sort of reality and yet there's no payoff in being correct.

[Howard Marks]

Right? Well, there's so much to say in response to your question. I use a lot of quotes and adages when I write because other people have said things so much better than we can. And one of the first adages I learned in the early 70s was that being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong. So yeah, it's painful to say something and predict something and then have to wait years and years for it to come true. Alan Greenspan famously said, I think it was in 96 that we're beginning to see signs of irrational exuberance in the stock market. And of course, the market went straight up for the next four years. And, you know, there are people who pronounced that we were in a stock market bubble. I think I can think of one in June of 2020. And here we are almost five years later. And of course, we did stall out in 22, but if you went out in 20 and weren't smart enough to come back in in 22, you've missed a big ride. So I think. Well, one thing I argue strenuously, Joe, is that in the investment business, there's no place for certainty. And Mark Twain said, it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for certain that just ain't true. And so you can have opinions, but you should never be certain that you're right. And you should never arrange your financial affairs on the assumption that your forecast is right, because it can be right intellectually or factually or rationally, but just take a long time to materialize. And if you can't survive between when you take your position and when it. When your expectation comes true, then obviously it's not something you should do. And one of my colleagues once wrote a note to his clients. He says, if you name a price, don't name a date, and if you name a date, don't name a price.

[Tracee Alloway]

But that's good advice for journalists, too.

[Howard Marks]

But anybody who names a price and a date is probably going to get carried out of the sooner or later.

[Tracee Alloway]

So what was it like then when you hit the publish button on the note? I think it was called bubble.com. and you published it? I think it was right at the start of January 1st. What was it, 2000?

[Howard Marks]

January. It was January 2nd. 2000 was the first business day of 2000.

[Tracee Alloway]

And then stocks peaked later that month, right?

[Howard Marks]

Yeah. No, I think a little later that year. Joe said it was in March. I don't remember exactly. I thought it was a little later than that. But I started writing these memos in 1990. I've been writing for 10 years. Of course, in those days they went out in the mail to a limited audience, just my clients. And for 10 years I never had a response. And then I spent the fall of 99 working on this memo, bubble.com and was ready to push the button, I guess I polished it over Christmas, probably, and sent it out the first day. And, you know, let me just clarify one thing for the record and for the benefit of the listeners. If you read that memo, it does not predict the bubble and it does not say the market's going to collapse. All it did is describe the current conditions. And that's two different things. Now, I don't make predictions. I only describe current conditions. And my motto is, we never know where we're going, but we sure as hell ought to know where we are. And I believe this is a little bit of a matter of semantics. I believe that where we are, if we properly assess it, informs where we're going. But I think people who waste their time figuring out, making predictions, which I'm strongly against, are wasting their time. I think that describing current conditions can be done accurately and obviously hasn't an impact on what the future holds. So as I say, read the memo. I think it reads well in retrospect. But don't expect to find a place where I say get out of the market or the market's going to collapse or we're in a bubble that's going to pop. What I say there is, I just want to call your attention to all these forms of excessive or overheated behavior and let you know what I think is going on. That's all it says.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

So in the art of just identifying where we are and when we're talking about financial markets, obviously we can use all kinds of ratios, et cetera, price to earnings, price to forward earnings, valuations, a million different ratios that you can come up with. And then there are sort of cultural markers. And I remember in summer 99, I would get lunch every day at the same pizza shop, and the pizza shop owner had CNBC on and he was trading tech stocks at the time. And these other sort of indicators that people are just excited about the prospect of making money and making money fast. And when you do an assessment and you say, okay, here's where we are.

[Grammarly Representative]

How much do you sort of hew.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Strictly to the math, so to speak? And how do you systematically incorporate other indicators of exuberance which perhaps can't always be captured on a Bloomberg terminal, for example?

[Howard Marks]

No, look, I think you're absolutely on the right track, Joe. You read the memo. My observations are, I would say 99%, what you called cultural markers, which I think is great, or behavioral indicators, and 1% math. And to me, it's the behavior that is so indicative. And in my first book, which is called the most important thing, I have something in there called the Poor Man's Guide to Market Assessment. And it really takes mostly cultural markers and puts them in two columns, left and right, and whichever column is prevailing, it tells you something. And for example, I say in there that if people like me are being invited to cocktail parties and are the center of attention and so forth, then it probably means that investing has been doing well and everybody's optimistic about it. And it indicates that maybe things are too hot. And if people like me are not invited or shunted off to the corner, maybe the markets are too cold, too cheap, and it's time to strike. So I think that these behavioral indicators are extremely important. And I wrote a memo in, I think it was the summer of 23 called taking the Temperature. And I describe what I do in this regard as taking the temperature of the market to figure out if it's hot or cold. When I was working on my second book, which is called Mastering the Market Cycle, and I was speaking with my son Andrew, who's a venture capitalist, I said to him, you know, I think my forecasts over the course of my career have been about right. And he says to me, yeah, dad, that's because you did it five times in 50 years. Five times in 50 years I found the market. Is this so crazy high or crazy low that you could make a logical case that was either overextended or too cheap and you could do so with a high degree of confidence? And I recount the five times I did it and why. But if I had tried to do it 500 times or 5,000 times in my career, I mean, I've probably been in the investment business for about almost 20,000 days. If I tried to do it 5,000 times every fourth day, you know, I'd probably be 50, 50 at best. So to me, it's noting extremes of behavior. And that's what I was doing with bubble.com and that's what I did in the five other observ.

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[Tracee Alloway]

You'Ve emphasized that you're describing current conditions, not necessarily making predictions. I'm curious how you translate those, you know, let's say accurate assessments of the current environment into actionable investments. Or I guess another way of asking this is, you know, if you're looking at stocks and thinking they're overvalued or there might be signs of overvaluation, how does that translate into the credit space?

[Howard Marks]

Good question, Tracy. To me, the main axis along which one establishes one's behavior as an investor is the axis that runs from aggressive to defensive. Each of us should figure out based on our personal conditions, our wealth, our income, our needs, our dependence, our age plans, etc. And also ability to withstand fluctuations. Each of us should figure out what our normal risk posture should be. Normally, should I be a low risk person, normal, or a high risk person? Then you should build a portfolio that responds to that decision. But then you might try to vary your position from time to time as conditions in the markets change. And I believe that, as I said, that the main axis along which one should think about varying one's position is between offense and defense. So you establish a position which is your normal position which has a certain amount of aggressiveness and a certain amount of defensiveness. But then are there times when you should become more aggressive and there are times when you should become more defensive, and that's what I did on those five occasions. And I'll give you an example. And by the way, these are all described in Taking the Temperature and I've mentioned or you've mentioned the memos from time to time, and I just want to note for the listeners that they're all [e-mail] under the heading of Insights. There's 35 years worth of memos there, about 200. And there's no price of admission. They're all free. And anybody who wants to sign up for a subscription can do so. But in taking the temperature I described the way in 0506 I was getting really leery of the markets. What was my indicator? My indicator, or as Joe would say, my cultural marker, my indicator was that I'm reading in the paper about new deals that are getting done. And the deals were crazy deals, deals that in my opinion should not get done. They were too good for the issuer and in my opinion, too bad for the investor. And deals were getting done anyway. And one of the investors main jobs is to decline to engage in stupid deals. If somebody comes and says, I'm going to sell you a gold mine and if you can put up a million dollars, you're going to make $100,000 a month for the rest of your life, your job is to say, no, that's too good to be true. Or if I say, I think there's a gold mine in Australia and if you put up a million dollars, it'll probably pay you a million dollars a year the rest of your life. If we find gold, you should say, no, that sounds too risky. I just think that we're unlikely to find gold. But if you see those deals getting done, it tells you that investors are not applying vigilance. They're not doing their job of resisting deals that are too risky or structured not in their favor. And in 05 06, I was seeing these deals done that made absolutely no sense. And I described myself as wearing out the carpet between my office and my partner, Bruce Karsh. And every day I would go and say, look at this piece of crap that got issued yesterday. A deal like this shouldn't get done. And if a deal like this can get done, there's something wrong. That was 99% of my observation at that time that investors were not being suitably skeptical, cautious, demanding and risk averse. And Buffett has a great saying which feeds right into this. He says the less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we must conduct our own affairs. And when others are wacky, we should head to the sidelines. That was the foundation of that conclusion. Now what happened was it turned out we were in a housing bubble. And the housing bubble gave rise to a mortgage bubble. And the mortgages, the subprime mortgages issued to people who could not or would not document their income or their assets were packaged into mortgage backed securities. And the people who bought the riskier tranches of those securities lost all their money, which the rating agencies rated very highly because they didn't understand it either. And this was going on en masse. And it was the collapse of the mortgage backed securities of which the banks had in many cases retained the risky portions when they structured them. It was the collapse that took Bear Stearns and Merrill lynch and Lehman Brothers and other aig et cetera, out of business as independent entities. I hasten to point out I didn't know anything about mortgage backed securities. I didn't understand subprime. I didn't know what was going on. It was going on in a distant corner of the investment world which I was not in on. I just knew that the climate was too permissive and the mortgage backed developments were a manifestation of that. But your question, I always try to come back to the question. Your question was what do you do about it? So what did we do? We sold most of our real estate holdings. We reduced holdings in many areas. We liquidated holdings in large funds, our opportunistic debt funds that we had formed in 01, 02 04, etc. We sold those holdings. We raised either small funds or no funds. And we waited for this behavior to produce opportunities after it passed. On the first day of 07, Bruce and I sent a memo to our clients saying we'd like to have $3.5 billion for distressed debt fund. The largest distressed fund in history had been 2 billion. It was our A1 fund. We wanted three and a half because we thought there was something big coming. And within a month we had 8 billion. We went to our investors, we said, we can't use 8 billion, we'll take 3 and a half. We closed that fund in March of 07. But we said we'd like to have the rest of your appetite for a standby fund. And we continued for a year to raise a standby fund again in an area where the biggest fund in history was $2 billion. We raised $11 billion and that was our fund 7B. And we put it on the shelf and we said this is for when the stuff hits the fan and we're not going to invest it until that time and we're not going to charge any fees and it's just commitments on the shelf because we'd like to have capital we can draw. And when Lehman went bankrupt on September 15 of 08, we had that $11 billion. We had only invested about 1 billion. We had 10 billion that we could call on. And so unlike most people, we didn't have to worry about where are we going to get money or can we invest or are our clients going to withdraw their money rather than. We had commitments, we were sure we could draw and so we could plunge in. And we started to invest. Bruce does the investing and we developed our position jointly and we decided to get down to work. So the next week, after the Lehman bankruptcy was Friday the 15th, we started investing and he invested for that fund alone, $450 million a week on average for the next 15 weeks. That's 7 billion in one quarter. Remember, in an area where the biggest fund in history was 2 billion. Why? Because we had prepared mentally, we had noted the bad climate, we had prepared for a denouement and we swung into action when it arrived. And I was very proud of him for taking that position. And people on the street have told me that in that quarter we were the only buyer. Well, that's how you get good deals. If you can buy when nobody else is buying, you get your pick of the litter at low prices. So that's. I just gave you a four or five year, I guess, four year description of a process, but man, you have to be patient because in 056 we were doing nothing, just selling. And we were not rewarded in 05 or 06 for that behavior. The reward came at the end of 08. But I think not everybody's in a position to apply that process to that extent. But I think it describes the process and of course I use it as an example for one simple reason. It was successful.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Always a good outcome when you have a success from it, obviously. Fantastic story. Your latest memo, which inspired us to reach out and want to chat with you on Bubble Watch. And as you mentioned, is the 25th anniversary of the bubble.com memo. And so 25 year anniversaries are just probably a good time to go back. But on the other hand, there is also this moment that we alluded to in the intro of incredible enthusiasm. Really, for like a handful of tech AI related names that's lifting the entire market up. Is this one of the moments? I mean, what is the temperature right now as you see it? You've mentioned you've had five moments, sort of maybe five calls in your career. Is this a sixth right now?

[Howard Marks]

No, it's not. Okay, because you asked before. Behavioral or numerical? The main observations today are numerical. The PE ratio on the S&P 500 is elevated. Relative to historic norms and the so called Magnificent Seven, the biggest companies in the S and P dominate its behavior, are going up or have been going up rapidly and they're hot stocks. And when you see one group perform especially well, you have to ask whether it's a bubble. And the S and P of course has gone up more than 20% a year for the last two years. And it's only I think the fifth time according to JP Morgan, the fifth time in history. So you have to ask these questions. But the troubling aspects, those are numerical. And what I say in the memo is that in my opinion it lacks the behavioral aspects of a bubble. And I talk about some of them and I say that a bubble is not just numerical, it is behavioral. And a bubble is really, it's not a rise, it's that bubble that's a bull market. It's not high prices. A bubble is a temporary mania in which people are so agog at things that they throw over all discipline, all caution. And I just don't, it just doesn't feel to me like we're there, we're high priced. I say lofty but not nutty. And the bubbles I've seen and I've lived through, starting with the day I joined this business in 69, we had what we call was called the Nifty 50. What you see going on is what they call in, in literature, the willing suspension of disbelief. You know, I know it's high, but if I don't go in I could miss something or I know it's high, but I don't think it's going to end tomorrow. And by the way, if it ends, I'll just get out. And of course, as I mentioned in the memo, the real hallmark of a bubble is when people say it's so great. This thing we're talking about, whether it's the Nifty50 stocks in 69 or Nvidia today or TMT in 99, they say it's so great that there's no price too high. And that was the official dictum in the money center banks in 69. With regard to the Nifty 50, it was the official victim. With regard to the Internet in 99, what did people say? The Internet will change the world. And so for the stocks there's no price too high. Well, guess what? The Internet did change the world. But because they bid up the stock so high, the people who invested in them lost almost all their money. So you know, people become psychologically unhinged and not tethered to reality and their portfolios slip their moorings and they think that they've found a perpetual motion machine or a tree that'll grow to the sky. And I just don't see those psychological or behavioral aspects today.

[Tracee Alloway]

So one of the things that Joe likes to emphasize when it comes to, well, the tech bubble specifically is the importance of stories or narratives. So one of the things that will drive this kind of behavior is you'll see a company come out with like, this huge ambition. I think Joe's favorite example is wasn't there, like, a car company that claim to have found the cure to AIDS?

[Joe Wiesenthal]

That's right. This is a good story. This was 1999, and people were just so optimistic that they thought a used car dealership in Nevada had in their back office found a cure for aids.

[Tracee Alloway]

That never ceases to be.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

This is a real story. I'll tweet out a link when this episode comes out.

[Tracee Alloway]

So nowadays there's an argument that some people make that we have a faster tech cycle than ever, and that means more stories can be generated more quickly. And given that you're a veteran in. In the space, can you maybe compare and contrast the tech cycle now to previous history?

[Howard Marks]

Well, listen, Tracy, number one, I'm not an equity guy. Number two, I'm not a tech person. I have no personal knowledge of the tech companies of today. I have an idea about AI. I've seen it do wonderful things so far. Most of my direct experience is with what I would call parlor games. I did an interview like this one with a Korean media company that I've worked with over the years. They sent me a video clip of it. And in the video clip, I'm sitting there speaking Korean. It wasn't titles, it wasn't dubbed. I'm speaking Korean. And not only. And it's not somebody else's voice coming out of my mouth, it's my voice coming out of my mouth in Korean and my lips are moving correctly now. That's an incredible accomplishment. I don't know if it's a money maker, but. So I guess what I'm saying is I don't know exactly how AI is going to be used in the future, but I can imagine that it's going to have a significant impact when computers can start thinking and doing things like that. It will change the world. And jobs are going to be created, jobs are going to be lost, efficiencies are going to be created, maybe whole new products. But I list in the memo a couple of the mistakes people make And I saw it with the Nifty 50, by the way. So in 1969, this was a list of roughly 50 companies. The best and fastest growing companies in America. Companies that were so great that, number one, nothing bad could ever happen. And number two, as I said, there was no price too high. And if you bought Those stocks in 69, you held them for five years, as I recall, you lost about 95% of your money because the price turned out to have been too high. And it came down by 90%, the PE ratio. And some of them ran into fundamental problems and had to be rescued or went through bankruptcy or disappeared from existence. So people assume that the trends that are underway will continue. One is the trend toward the Internet in 99, another is the trend toward AI today, and that it will be of great consequence. And I'm sure it will. They also believe, however, that the companies that are successful today will continue to be successful, that they won't be challenged or disrupted or displaced. When the thinking really gets optimistic, they conclude that every company can succeed. And we know that that's highly unlikely. There are going to be winners and losers. We can't always predict which is which. If we find a company that's a leader today and dominant and we pay a price consistent with that dominance and they turn out not to be dominant, price may turn out to have been excessive. And then ultimately people engage in what's called lottery thinking, or what I call lottery thinking, which is, well, it's nowhere as a competitor in this new thing, but maybe it has a 2% chance of becoming a big winner and going up a thousand times. And if it could go up a thousand times, then I can pay a PE ratio of 100x because I'll still make money. So they will buy into things that have a very low probability of producing a very good outcome. And that's like buying a ticket in the lottery. And most lottery tickets are losers. But this is what happens in bubbles. Now, you asked me to differentiate. Since I'm not an expert on AI, I can't differentiate, but I think there's a very good comparison to the Internet. We expected the Internet to change the world. We can't imagine today living in the pre 95 world without all the tech we have today. And yet the vast majority of Internet and e commerce companies that were minted in 98, 99, 2000 are out of business and worthless. I'm not sure it's going to be the case with AI, but it has to give you caution. That's all I'M saying just keep your eyes open and don't drop all reason in a rush to get in. And by the way, one of the great differences in a bubble is that usually people are afraid of losing money. But one of the hallmarks of a bubble is that people forget to worry about losing money and only worry about missing out fomo. When FOMO takes over, people say, yeah, well the price seems high, but if my competitor or my golf buddy or my brother in law buys it and I don't buy it and it triples, I'm going to kill myself. So I got to buy it regardless. And you know, so I guess maybe to sum up on bubbles, a great way to characterize that is that it's when people say I got to buy it regardless. And I would argue prudently that nobody should ever do something regardless.

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[Joe Wiesenthal]

I guess I'm interested a little bit more in why you don't see those characteristics today. Because all people talk about is AI. We just had the President, you know, make this big announcement. We're going to spend half a trillion on data centers and so forth. It's, you know, just this dominant mode of conversation. You know, I'm sort of of two minds of this because, you know, I've been hearing people, you know, regular people on the street talk about their speculations or their Robinhood accounts or their crypto accounts, whatever, for years now. And mostly the prices have been going up. It certainly feels to me like some of the indicators that you describe of fear, of missing out and so forth currently exist in this incredible, this incredible hype. I'd like to hear you talk a little bit more about why right now, mostly you just see, yes, the math is expensive, the numbers are expensive, but you don't feel that sort of. That sort of euphoria that has characterized past bubbles.

[Howard Marks]

Well, you know, I guess, Joe, part of it is that I don't. I don't live in that world. You know, since I'm a credit guy and not a tech person, I don't spend much time talking to people who are interested in AI stocks, okay, or who are doing AI businesses. So it might just be that I'm missing that. So some of the conditions, some or all of the conditions of a bubble might be present in a few stocks or in the AI and related niche. I'm just saying that I don't feel it across the world. And if you take the Magnificent Seven out of the equation, I think things are rich but not crazy. I did read an article on that subject. I did read an article about a month or two ago which said that if you look at the S and P and leave out the Magnificent Seven and you compare the S and P companies with their non US equivalent in something like the MSCI index of non US equities, you'll find that the US equities in every industry just about sell at higher PE ratios than their counterparts outside the US So I think the US Is more expensive than the rest of the world. Again, not crazy. And by the way, I'm convinced that the US has the best economy in the world. And all these questions, especially in the stock market, in the bond market, where I mostly work, the credit market, you have an indicator of value, which is the yield, and you look at the promised return from a given investment and you Say, well, I think that's sufficient to reward for the risk or not. In other words, I think the price is fair or it's not fair or it's too cheap or too high. In the stock market, it's hard to do that because in the stock market, you can enumerate the pluses and minuses of a given company or industry or phenomenon like AI, but it's hard to say, but the current price is fair or too high or too low. It's hard to turn a recitation of merit into the fairness of value. And so, yeah, people may be too excited about AI and that may result in prices that are too high for their stocks. And I spent in 2020, during the pandemic, I spent a lot of time living with my son and his family. And one thing he talked me out of, he says, dad, you ought to stop talking about things you don't know anything about. Only a son can say that to his father. But I think it's good advice. As we get more specific in this conversation, and it goes from stock market to S and P to AI, I become more reticent to say anything concrete because I really don't have superior knowledge. And my hero, John Kenneth Galbraith, said that one of the shortcomings of the market is the specious relationship between money and intelligence. And most people tend to look at somebody who's made money, and especially who's made money in the markets, and credit them with general intelligence, which is usually a mistake.

[Tracee Alloway]

So I just have one more question, and I guess it's about the aftermath of bubbles. And it's based on a conversation that you had with Mike Milken at the Milken conference, and both of you were on stage and reminiscing about your time in the markets. And one of the stories you were telling was about the bursting of the nifty 50 bubble and its impact on the development of the financial industry. And I think the idea was that all these people had put their money into things that were, you know, expected to be quite reliable, reliable stocks, stalwarts of corporate America. And then they lost virtually all their money. And that development ended up catalyzing the money management industry. Because if you could lose money on boring stuff like blue chip stocks, then why not, you know, try high yield or some alternative credit instead? And I guess I'm curious, do you see any interesting developments in the finance industry right now, perhaps not in the immediate aftermath of a bubble, but, you know, maybe related to a paradigm shift like higher interest rates?

[Howard Marks]

First of all, I have been writing something about something called the Sea Change. I Met Mike in 78. That's when Citibank asked me to look into high yield bonds. And I was very fortunate. It was maybe the luckiest day in my life that I got that call because that put me at the front of the line. That's kind of the year that the high yield bond market began and became very important. And here I was, no fault of my own working there. And the high yield bond fund that I started at Citi in 78 might have been the first one from a mainstream financial institution. And as Malcolm Gladwell said in his book Outliers, it's great to be demographically lucky. So in 1980, the fed funds rate reached 20. Paul Volcker, as head of the Fed, put the fed funds there to battle the inflation that was rampant at the time. And it worked. And I had a loan from a bank and I got a slip in the mail saying that the rate on your loan is now 22 and a quarter. And that was 80. And in 2020 I was able to borrow at 2.25%. So rates came down by 2,000 basis points over 40 years. I believe that was a paradigm shift and that changed the whole world and it made a lot of people a lot of money. But I published a memo in December of 22 called Sea Change, saying that it's over. We're no longer in an environment where declining rates and ultra low rates are going to be the rule. We're going to have higher rates and they're going to be essentially stable, not downward trending all the time. The other thing that you note is that prior to the meltdown of the Nifty50, the simplistic thought process in investing was that it's responsible to buy high quality assets and it's irresponsible to buy low quality assets. And the job of the fiduciary was to buy high quality assets. Well, here the best companies in America, you lost almost all your money. And then I shifted to I O bonds. Now I'm investing in arguably the worst public companies in America and making money steadily and safely. So it did occasion a sea change in how investing is done. And it was a very important lesson that I was happy to learn at the very beginning of my career. I was 23 years old when I started work in 69. And I lived through this whole collapse in my 20s. And it's very important to learn your lessons early. The lesson I learned was that successful investing doesn't come from buying good things, but from buying things well. And if you don't understand the difference, it's more than grammatical and that it's not what you buy that matters, it's what you pay. The price has to be fair. And there is no asset which is so good that it can't become overvalued and dangerous. And there are very few assets that are so bad that they can't become cheap enough to. To be attractive. It was an epiphany for me and I think it changed the whole world. And we no longer say, is it a good asset or a bad asset or a good company or bad asset. We say, is it risky? How risky is it? What return do we expect? Is the return sufficient to compensate for the risk? And that is the change that has dominated the investment world for the last, I would say 47 years, since 78. And we do so many things today like venture capital and private equity and tranche securities which entail conscious risk bearing that couldn't have been done in the old world of good and bad or safe and risky.

[Grammarly Representative]

I just have one last question.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

I was going to let Tracy have the last question, but you said one thing that hit something that's been on my mind. And you mentioned in the summer of 2020, being able to borrow money for 2%. One of the questions that's been debated the last several years is why haven't the interest rate increases that we've seen across the curve had a more dampening effect on the strength of the US Economy? And one story that gets put out is that a lot of borrowing entities, whether they're households like yourselves or various firms, locked in very low borrowing in those couple of years, and that the effect of higher rates therefore has been muted, hasn't transmitted to the real economy. Have we felt that adjustment yet? Is there something coming? Because those rates can't stay locked in forever, especially for shorter term borrowing. Have we felt the impact of this sea change yet on the economy, or is there more to come downstream from this reversal of what may be a 40 plus year trend?

[Howard Marks]

No, I think it clearly hasn't worked its way through because when you borrow money, you borrow for a period of time. And if you borrow at a fixed rate, there's also floating rate borrowing. But if you borrow at a fixed rate, you fix your rate for a maturity of five or seven years, then even if rates go up, you're immune to it and you don't feel the impact until your debt matures and has to be rolled over. You know, people in this business or in the business world in general, are not brain dead. And many of them, as you say, rolled over their debts in 2020 or 21 and, you know, locked up low cost debt until 26 or 27. So they're fine. But maybe they took on too much debt when debt was cheap and readily available and maybe they won't be able to refinance all of it, or some of them may not be able to refinance all of it when it rolls over in 26 or 27. That's what we call a credit crunch. When you can't roll over your debts, nobody ever repays their debts. They just roll them over. And sometimes you can't. We believe that there, I mean, look, there are already some defaults, not many compared to the crises in the past. But when maturities start coming due in 26, 27, and if Wall street or the banks are a little less generous and optimistic, maybe there'll be some difficulty rolling it over and then just the cost of money. So the federal government has a portfolio of debt. They don't own a portfolio. They owe a portfolio of debt, some of which is long and some of which is short. So they're paying low rates on the long debts, but again, when that comes due, they'll have to roll that over at higher rates and it'll cost them money. And so if the interest rate merely stays where it is, the cost of capital to the US Government will rise over time as they replace low cost debt with high cost debt. So this has not fully worked itself through the economy yet. And there's more of it to come.

[Tracee Alloway]

All right, Howard Marks, we could easily keep going for a couple more hours, probably longer than that, but this has been an absolute. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

[Howard Marks]

Well, thank you for your good questions and I'd be glad to do it too. And let's do it again sometime.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Absolutely, we'd love to. Thank you so much, Howard. That is fantastic.

[Tracee Alloway]

Joe. I thought that was so interesting. So first of all, you know that I love just listening to like wartime financial crisis stories. So that was great. And then I thought one thing that was really interesting. Well, first of all, there aren't as many cross asset investors as you might think out there. And so it's really interesting to hear someone that is, you know, firmly in the credit space, but is also looking at other asset classes in order to judge current market conditions. And then the other thing I thought was the emphasis on action being sort of a spectrum of caution and risk. So it's not the tech bubble is about to come and, you know, sell all your tech exposure. It's more like maybe I should ratchet down a little bit, maybe start raising, you know, some dry powder for a rainy day.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

That was really interesting. The specific story, the sequence, raising that dry powder, starting with the warning in 2005 that didn't get deployed or wasn't able to be paid off for years. But the idea of, okay, if you see something coming down the horizon, it's not enough to say, well, yes, there's going to be an opportunity. The idea of, you know, raising one fund and then having that other fund on the shelf, cash that can be callable for the day that it comes. You know, there were a lot of people that probably thought, oh, there are really good deals to be had in September 2008 or March 2009 or whatever. But there's no good in having stuff being cheap if you don't have any cash available to buy it.

[Tracee Alloway]

Do people still call it patient capital? I remember people used to call, you know, dry powder patient capital because the idea was, you set it aside and it might be a long time until you're actually able to invest.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

You also, you know, this also strikes me as where, like, brand value of a firm really matters, right? Because you're not going to get billions in excess commitments into that. You know, you and I aren't going, right? It's like Tracy and I, it's like, oh, we think AI is going to crash in a few years, or we.

[Tracee Alloway]

Want to buy 10 billion.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

We want to buy data center real estate on the cheap. So give us a billion. But, you know, that's the only. That's a thing that you can monetize only after having years of success. I thought it's interesting, this idea of there's a difference between expensive and a bubble, and that in his assessment, we're not there yet. And I really appreciate his perspective because it's easy for me to say on the day, oh, everyone's talking about AI all the time, et cetera, and therefore, we must be near the top of a bubble. But I don't have experience in markets going back to the 1960s of, like, what that actually feels like.

[Tracee Alloway]

Well, when a car company, a car rental company in Nevada says that, it's like they have a new AI model that's gonna start. I don't know, that's gonna revolutionize the world, then maybe that's the time to be concerned.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

That's how we'll know.

[Tracee Alloway]

All right, shall we leave it there.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Let's leave it there.

[Tracee Alloway]

This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me, Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wiesenthal.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmenarmon, Dash O'Bennett at Dashbot, and Kel Brooks at Kel Brooks. For more Odd Lots content go to bloomberg.com oddlots where you have transcripts, a blog and a newsletter and you can chat about all of these topics including AI, including markets, including credit, anything you want.

[Grammarly Representative]

24.

[Joe Wiesenthal]

Seven in our Discord, Discord, GG, Oddlauds.

[Tracee Alloway]

And if you enjoy Odds Lots. If you like it when we speak to prominent investors and reminisce about previous bubbles, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg Channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.

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