Links - 01/07/2025
“When something is on the pedestal of popularity, the risk of a decline is high. When people assume – and price in – an expectation that things can only get better, the damage done by negative surprises is profound. When something is new, the competitors and disruptive technologies have yet to arrive. The merit may be there, but if it’s overestimated it can be overpriced, only to evaporate when reality sets in. In the real world, trees don’t grow to the sky.” —Howard Marks (“On Bubble Watch”)
“I’ve seen nothing to improve on Graham and Fisher in terms of the basic approach of going about investing, which is to think about stocks as businesses, and then think about what makes a good business. And really, that’s all there is to investing—and having a margin of safety, which Ben talks about, and so on. It’s not a complicated process, but it definitely requires a discipline. It requires insulating yourself from popular opinion.” —Warren Buffett (2002)
Boyar’s Forgotten Forty 2025 Edition – featuring Boyar’s best catalyst-driven stock ideas for the year ahead – is now available. I just received my copy and can’t wait to dive in! For a limited time, you can access the complete report at a 25% discount. Curious about what’s inside? You can download two full reports from the 2025 edition for free by clicking here.
Howard Marks Memo: On Bubble Watch (PDF, Podcast)
Exactly 25 years ago today, I published the first memo that brought a response from readers (after having written for almost ten years without receiving any). The memo was called bubble.com, and the subject was the irrational behavior I thought was taking place with respect to tech, internet, and e-commerce stocks. The memo had two things going for it: it was right, and it was right fast. One of the first great investment adages I learned in the early 1970s is that “being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.” In this case, however, I wasn’t too far ahead.
This milestone anniversary gives me an occasion to write again about bubbles, a subject that’s very much of interest today. Some of what I write here will be familiar to anyone who read my December memo about the macro picture. But that memo only went to Oaktree clients, so I’m going to recycle here the part of its content that relates to the subject of bubbles.
Remembrance of Things Future - by Jason Zweig (LINK)
A Quarter Century of Investing (LINK)
Value After Hours: Dan Rasmussen (video) (LINK)
The Knowledge Project Podcast: #211 Codie Sanchez: Your Blueprint to Financial Freedom (LINK)
Against the Rules with Michael Lewis Podcast: Episode 8: The Integrity Landscape (LINK)
Biocubes: an inventory of biomass and technomass [H/T Jake] (LINK)
“If it costs you your peace, it’s too expensive.” —Paulo Coelho
“‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’ But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.” —Marcus Aurelius