Howard Marks: Fragile Markets Are A Good Time To Invest

In this interview with the Brazil Journal, Howard Marks explained why he feels very positive about the current environment, saying the fragile conditions create more opportunities. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Marks: I gave a speech from 2010 to 2020 entitled “Investing in a Low Return World.” We were in a low return world.

How do you get a good return in a low return world? It’s not easy. Most of the solutions involve taking a lot of risk in order to amp up the return. That’s not our style. So, as I say, we were in the game but cautiously.

We turned more aggressive when the pandemic hit. We do better in worse times. In good times, everybody’s optimistic, security prices go to the moon.

In bad times, people are more worried, and so they let security prices decline, which is attractive to us.

We have raised some large funds since mid-2020, three years now. We’ve invested somewhat more aggressively.

We’ve seen much better lending and investing opportunities. We’re feeling good about the environment at the present time.

Not good in the sense that we’ll see rapid economic growth, good in the sense that a somewhat more fragile environment will create more opportunities for us.

You can watch the entire discussion here: