Marks argues the key insight is that any asset can be good at the right price.
“the big realization of the last ten, forty years is that just about every asset can get cheap enough so that it's a good investment, and most investments can get so expensive that they're a bad investment. And the revolution of the high yield bond industry was really to say,”
Marks argues understanding psychology's ebb and flow is crucial to improving upon buy-and-hold investing.
“I think that if you want to exist in the investment world and you want to, you can just buy and hold good things if you want to take that approach, But if you want to improve upon that, I think it's very important to understand the ebb and flow of psychology and act accordingly.”
Marks defines exceptional investors as those achieving good returns disproportionate to risk taken.
“I think that an exceptional investor is someone who has a good return disproportionate to the risk born. A good return with the risk under control.”
Marks says great investors are right only 60-80% of the time; those needing certainty should avoid investing.
“The great investors are right 60%, 70%, maybe 80% of the time. If you're the kind of person who has to be right all the time, you shouldn't be in in investing.”
Marks adopted if you avoid the losers, the winners take care of themselves as Oaktree's founding motto in 1995.
“in equities, if you can avoid the losers and losing years, the winners will take care of themselves.”
Marks argues investors have inherent optimism bias because investing requires giving money hoping for more later.
“Because you have to be optimistic to be an investor. What is investing? You take your money, you give it to somebody else in the hope you'll get back more later.”
Marks calls waiting for the bottom one of the dumbest things investors can do.
“So, of the, I think, of the dumbest things you can do in the investment business is to say, I'm gonna wait for the bottom.”
Marks explains why timing the bottom is impossible: you can only identify it after the fact.
“the bottom is the day before it starts going up. Right? And if that's true, then by definition, you never know when you're at the bottom because you can only tell the next day.”
Marks states Buffett attributes his success to just 12 investments over 60-70 years without many abject failures.
“Warren Buffett, the most successful investor of all times, attributes his success to 12 investments over the last sixty, seventy years. Now he didn't have that many abject failures,”