A BILLIONAIRE SAYS PREDICTING THE MARKET IS USELESS:
Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital, has concluded after 50 years of investing:
You don't need to know what will happen tomorrow.
You need to understand what's happening right now.
When everyone is sure prices will rise, the risk can already be enormous.
When everyone is sure the market will crash, that's when the best opportunities can arise.
In 2008, when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and investors fled the market en masse, Oaktree began aggressively buying distressed assets.
Why?
Not because Marks knew when the crisis would end.
He simply understood:
Crises end.
And if the market is selling good assets at a price that practically implies the end of the world, you don't need a perfect forecast.
You need the courage to buy.
Marx says another unpleasant thing:
Successful investing isn't just about buying good assets.
It's important to buy them at a good price.
In 2000, the internet truly changed the world.
But that didn't mean every internet company was a good investment.
This is where most people confuse two things:
A good company ≠ a good investment.
Price matters.
Cycles matter.
Crowd psychology matters.
And most importantly, you don't have to know the future to profit from it.
BENOIT MANDELBROT UNDERSTOOD THIS ABOUT THE MARKET BACK IN THE 1960s:
"Price doesn't move the way we've been taught.
Not like a perfect random walk.
Not like a series of independent events.
The market is much rougher than classical models assume.
Most days may seem insignificant.
But then come a few days that change everything.
It's in these rare moments that enormous fortunes are created.
And it's in these same moments that they are destroyed.
The problem is that standard models assume that extreme events are so rare that they can be almost ignored.
And the market proves otherwise time and time again.
Rare events are not the exception.
Sometimes they determine the entire outcome."
Mandelbrot called such processes "wild randomness." And here's what's really interesting:
If the biggest market moves don't happen as conventional models predict...
then how much confidence do we have in our forecasts?
The market might not be chaotic.
It might be fractal.
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