SuperInvestor: Howard Marks on Contrarianism

Great insights on contrarian investing from one of the world’s best investors. You cannot go wrong reading Marks and following his advice.

What do you do if Warren Buffett calls you personally and offers to write the foreword for your book? First, you write the book as soon as possible and second, you make it worthy and useful enough to deserve an endorsement from Buffett.(Source: Google Talk)

That’s precisely what Howard Marks did with his book called The  Most  Important ThingMarks runs a US$ 90 billion hedge fund called Oaktree Capital and has more than four decades of investing experience. Just like Buffett, he has been writing letters (memos) to his investors for last twenty five years.

These memos contain insightful commentary and a time- tested philosophy about sensible investing. Howard Marks is not only a super investor but a thoughtful author too. His writings are not to be missed and that’s what Buffett seems to say in this statement –

“When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they’re the first thing I open and read. I always learn something, and that goes double for his book.”

In this post, I try to draw one big lesson from his writings and offer them to you for reflection. The big idea for today is contrarian investing. Let’s dive in right away.

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