Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
I worked in both large public and large private companies. There is a lot of grifting in large public companies. With our conversation, all my unpleasant memories about this came back flooding (I happen to have a short memory for unpleasant things). Large private companies used to be more disciplined but these days there are a lot of large venture backed private companies, which exhibit a lot of moral hazard w/r/t cash use / allocation, especially those private companies that are venture backed by large public companies. Many of the ventured backed private companies these days do not have the founder / employee liquidity constraints as they offer employees an opportunity to sell on the secondary market. I was involved in writing off billions of dollars of such misallocations, not counting the amounts paid to the biggest of the hoggers, the large consulting companies.
That inauguration photo with the big tech CEOs was chilling for the direction we are headed. Complete regulatory capture!
Sounds like there's a lot more friction than there used to be.
Tom Bowley (mentioned and quoted extensively by one of the posters) was uber bearish and sold portfolio to 100% cash on Friday (https://youtube.com/watch?v=t2QIKw-O2wg). Today, he is live streaming his webinar titled "Bearish Signals Abound: Navigate the Uncertainty" on Youtube in 50 minutes -
FD posted earlier in this thread about Tom Bowley’s positive market outlook (to mock Howard Marks and posters who quoted Howard Marks). The difficulty with opinion shopping / data torturing posters is they do not later post contrary information even from the same source if it does not support their agenda. But other innocent posters / lurkers who do not keep up can get hurt.
I was simply closing the loop for the forum’s sake.
My post was not a recommendation one way or the other on the market or on Tom Bowley.
Not even close. Bowley is a trader that has been trading in/out and owning leading categories and single stocks. Someone who listens to him can do almost nothing if the S&P 500 is doing OK or use his categories/stock ideas. He states his opinion every week on where the markets are and what they will likely do. Marks is all about generic stuff, not specifics, and hardly ever what to do NOW.
My point for years is that future predictions is a fool errand. I have never invested based on the future, only based on current markets and they can be illogical and longer than anyone can predict.
Over the years, I’ve posted versions of the above many times. I’ve also pointed out that Marks rarely offers actionable guidance, instead publishing a great deal of commentary and fluff. When he finally did take a stance, I posted that I'm going to wait. It turns out his call for 2025 turned out to be wrong as well.
Is 2025 over already? How long did you have to search for that? Maybe if Mr. Marks knew that the tech billionaires were going to pay for favors he might have hedged his remarks.
Is 2025 over already? How long did you have to search for that? Maybe if Mr. Marks knew that the tech billionaires were going to pay for favors he might have hedged his remarks.
Never trust anyone, who quotes himself, as some sort of proof. Or dredges up old threads to seek validation. It is so transparently needy and desperate. A sign of clinical narcissism, bred of insecurity.
Likely, a person whose siblings have been objectively more successful. Or an only child whose father withheld approval.
Is 2025 over already? How long did you have to search for that? Maybe if Mr. Marks knew that the tech billionaires were going to pay for favors he might have hedged his remarks.
2026 is two weeks away, and even that’s irrelevant. Marks called for a bubble on 1/7/2025. It's already more than 11 months. Ifs and buts don't count, only actual performance does. Bottom line: Marks was wrong. If you listened to him, you missed a lot of performance.
I added him to my long list of bad predictions by the "experts." This is what I posted on my site (link). See the last posts.
On 1-7-2025 Howard Marks published his memo (www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/memo/on-bubble-watch). If the market doesn’t finish 2025 with at least -20%, Marks will have earned a spot on the "wall of shame." A decline of 5-15% is "normal.". Bubble prediction calls for a lot more. Now, we are going to wait.
On 12-15-2025: It's Dec 15, 2025, and the SP500 is up about 17% which is a nice performance. It's pretty clear that Marks was wrong.
marks has never written to offer monthly advice. his main talent has been to deploy loads of committed capital at mkt lows in high tiers of capital structures. that is the only 'signal' one will get, and maybe that is also gone within the maze of brookfield.
where i do fault marks is his ever-insistent emphasis on 'risk' without providing any practical means of assessing such for the self-investor.
marks has never written to offer monthly advice. his main talent has been to deploy loads of committed capital at mkt lows in high tiers of capital structures. that is the only 'signal' one will get, and maybe that is also gone within the maze of brookfield.
where i do fault marks is his ever-insistent emphasis on 'risk' without proving any practical means of assessing such for the self-investor.
I discussed that as well. His memos have always been long and convoluted, filled with commentary but very little actionable guidance. After years of avoiding a clear stance, he finally called a bubble last January.
FD - do yourself a favor and go re-read the memo I linked at the beginning of this discussion only this time put on your thinking and comprehension hats if you have them.
At no point in the memo did Marks call for a bubble. If you can find it in the memo please do share. Here is what he did say:
"As I said at the start of this memo, I’m not an equity investor, and I’m certainly no expert on technology. Thus, I can’t speak authoritatively about whether we’re in a bubble. I just want to lay out the facts as I see them and suggest how you might think about them . . . just as I did 25 years ago."
Marks as always leaves the door open just in case he is wrong. In the memo he discussed a bubble at length. He also said in the beginning "All of my observations will be generalities, but I’m hopeful they’ll be relevant nonetheless."
What is the purpose of discussing a bubble in 01/2025 and reminds us about a similar call 25 years? There is only one conclusion.
FD said "Marks called for a bubble on 1/7/2025. It's already more than 11 months. Ifs and buts don't count, only actual performance does. Bottom line: Marks was wrong. If you listened to him, you missed a lot of performance."
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/live/axOGOHPHADE
Not a recommendation, just an FYI.
FD posted earlier in this thread about Tom Bowley’s positive market outlook (to mock Howard Marks and posters who quoted Howard Marks). The difficulty with opinion shopping / data torturing posters is they do not later post contrary information even from the same source if it does not support their agenda. But other innocent posters / lurkers who do not keep up can get hurt.
I was simply closing the loop for the forum’s sake.
My post was not a recommendation one way or the other on the market or on Tom Bowley.
Bowley is a trader that has been trading in/out and owning leading categories and single stocks. Someone who listens to him can do almost nothing if the S&P 500 is doing OK or use his categories/stock ideas. He states his opinion every week on where the markets are and what they will likely do.
Marks is all about generic stuff, not specifics, and hardly ever what to do NOW.
Likely, a person whose siblings have been objectively more successful. Or an only child whose father withheld approval.
Marks called for a bubble on 1/7/2025. It's already more than 11 months.
Ifs and buts don't count, only actual performance does.
Bottom line: Marks was wrong. If you listened to him, you missed a lot of performance.
I added him to my long list of bad predictions by the "experts."
This is what I posted on my site (link). See the last posts.
where i do fault marks is his ever-insistent emphasis on 'risk' without providing any practical means of assessing such for the self-investor.
At no point in the memo did Marks call for a bubble. If you can find it in the memo please do share. Here is what he did say:
"As I said at the start of this memo, I’m not an equity investor, and I’m certainly no expert on technology. Thus, I can’t speak authoritatively about whether we’re in a bubble. I just want to lay out the facts as I see them and suggest how you might think about them . . . just as I did 25 years ago."
In the memo he discussed a bubble at length.
He also said in the beginning
"All of my observations will be generalities, but I’m hopeful they’ll be relevant nonetheless."
What is the purpose of discussing a bubble in 01/2025 and reminds us about a similar call 25 years?
There is only one conclusion.
He was wrong !!
"Marks called for a bubble on 1/7/2025. It's already more than 11 months.
Ifs and buts don't count, only actual performance does.
Bottom line: Marks was wrong. If you listened to him, you missed a lot of performance."
Nope. What's clear is that you were wrong.