📖Howard Marks

Know the Limits of Knowledge

🌿 Intermediate★★★★★

Acknowledge what you don't know.

💬

The most important thing is knowing what you don't know. Acknowledging your ignorance is the beginning of wisdom in investing.

— The Most Important Thing,2011

🏠 Everyday Analogy

A process is like a pilot checklist: discipline prevents simple mistakes when pressure rises and keeps outcomes more repeatable.

📖 Core Interpretation

Howard Marks advocates a repeatable process: define criteria, execute consistently, and review decisions against evidence. Process quality drives outcome consistency.
💎 Key Insight:Humility about knowledge prevents overconfidence.

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❓ Why It Matters

Without process, there is no reliable feedback loop. Structured execution and review improve decision quality over time.

🎯 How to Practice

Run a decision loop of research, thesis, execution, and post-mortem; document assumptions and update playbooks with evidence, not hindsight bias.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

Having opinions without execution criteria
Reviewing outcomes but not decisions
Abandoning rules during volatility spikes

📚 Case Studies

1
Credit Crisis Mispricing (2008)
Structured credit and financial stocks collapsed as housing and liquidity risks were mispriced, revealing major inefficiencies in complex securities.
✨ Outcome:Oaktree bought distressed debt at deep discounts, benefiting when prices normalized over the following years.
2
Dot-Com Bubble Caution (1999)
Despite soaring tech stocks, Marks highlighted extreme valuations and weak fundamentals, emphasizing risk over return potential.
✨ Outcome:Oaktree avoided the most overvalued names, underperforming briefly in the mania but preserving capital when the bubble burst.

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