Oaktree Capital Management avatar

Investment memo · 2025-01-07

On Bubble Watch

Oaktree Capital Management · Howard Marks

Bubble Investment Psychology Market cycle Risk control

AI summary and analysis

Marks looks back at the Bubble Identification Framework on the 25th anniversary of bubble.com, discussing the dangers of extreme psychology, hot faucet persistence, and "this time it's different."

Key points

  • He reminded investors that bubbles are not just high valuations, but a combination of extreme psychology and widespread belief that there is no upper limit to the future.
  • Even if a popular company is really good, it may not be able to maintain its market leadership position for a long time. Investors often overestimate the sustainability of winners.
  • Marks does not make bubble judgments into an accurate clock, but uses environmental observations to decide whether more caution should be used.
  • This memo is of great reference to the market in the context of AI and Magnificent Seven, because it reuses the psychological framework of the Internet bubble period.
  • This classic memo illustrates that risk not only comes from bad assets, but can also come from bad prices of good assets.

Other viewpoints from the same firm

What’s Going on in Private Credit?

Howard Marks sorts out the evolution of private credit and direct lending. The focus is not to simply judge whether the industry is good or bad, but to remind investors to distinguish between asset structure, underwriting discipline, leverage, liquidity and cycle testing.

Investment memo

AI Hurtles Ahead

Marks discusses AI again, but the core is not to predict which company will win, but to use bubbles, infrastructure overinvestment, and price discipline to evaluate the investment risks of AI assets.

Investment memo

Is It a Bubble?

Marks responded directly to the AI bubble issue. He did not simply give a binary answer, but split it into four levels: corporate investment behavior, investor psychology, AI infrastructure and market pricing.

Investment memo

Cockroaches in the Coal Mine

Marks discusses risk exposure using the case of early stage problems in credit markets. His concern is whether localized defaults and stress events represent a broader credit cycle turn.

Investment memo

A Look Under the Hood

Marks starts from the perspective of the institutional investment process and discusses easily overlooked issues in investment committees, advisors, risk metrics, and portfolio governance.

Investment memo

The Best of...

Marks creates a curated index of his 35 years of memo writing, directly giving the material he believes best represents Oaktree's investment thinking and market cycle observations.

Investment memo