Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital, distills decades of investing wisdom into about 20 core ideas. Each chapter begins with “The Most Important Thing Is…”—a deliberate paradox that there’s no single most important thing. The book is an investor’s manual for thinking, not stock picking.
My Key Learnings:
1. Second-Level Thinking
“It’s not what you think. It’s how you think.”
- First-level thinkers see things at face value.
- Second-level thinkers ask: What is already priced in? What is the consensus missing?
- Investing is a zero-sum game—outperformance requires thinking differently and being right.
2. Understanding Value
“You can’t predict, but you can prepare.”
- The foundation of investing is buying assets for less than their intrinsic value.
- Know the difference between price and value—they aren’t always the same.
- Markets can misprice assets due to emotions and herd behavior.