저자: HowardMarks—제목기준,실제발언자확인불가시'미상'소속가능 · 외국인
요약 보기
소형 투자자는 규모가 작을수록 자산 운용 시 유리하며 운용자금이 커지면 성과가 악화되므로 적정 규모 유지가 중요하다. 현재 무위험금리가 0에 가까워 안전자산 수익률이 낮아지면서 투자자들이 고위험 자산으로 몰리는 '바닥으로의 경쟁(race to the bottom)'이 나타나고 있다. 2006~07년과 같은 극단은 아니지만 신중함이 필요하며 'Move forward, but with caution'이 운용 원칙이다. 특정 종목·자산에 대한 가격 방향 예측 발언은 없다.
다듬은 글
Uh one question uh Buffett uh in 99 said that if he was running very small amounts of money he would be able to find lots of bargains and beat the market by 50% and he would use the word guaranteed. Uh I presume he meant that there are a lot of inefficiencies in the small um capitalization stocks. One thing that kind of surprises me is if uh someone an analyst willing to work hard on his own not in an institution.
The world of distress debt investing is kind of shut out even for the value investor uh filled with lot of technicalities and seems like the big institution has a lot of advantage there. Are there such inefficiencies that are kind of shut out to the institutions but the small investor willing to work hard can find inefficiencies in the debt world?
Well, I think that uh I I think that I think that this the small guy can even be active in distress debt. Uh he he can't get enough bonds to get a seat at the creditors committee table or have a voice, but he can still uh find superior values. Um you know, so what I was saying in answer to your question is that if you have good if you get some accounts and you have good performance, you'll get more accounts.
So the that goes a little further because what I really say is that if you have good performance, you'll get more money and eventually if you let that process become unchecked, if you get more money, you'll have bad performance. And this is one of the conundrums in our in our business. And so you have to halt that.
But the truth of the matter is that the little guy has an advantage as long as he's willing to stay small. Many people are not because the in the short run the more money you manage when you get fees the you know there's a it's a great lure to take on more money but you have to stop it at a point where it's before it starts ruining your performance.
Now, uh, for the data scientists among us, I always like to point out that I if if I worked at, uh, u, you know, Firestone tires and I developed a new tire and I wanted to know how far it would go, I would put it on a car and run it until it blew up, right? That's called destructive testing. But as an investor with clients and a fiduciary responsibility, I don't have the luxury of doing destructive testing.
So, I can't add more. People always say to me, well, what's the limit on how much money you can invest? Well, and I can't find out by running into the wall. I have to stop this side of the wall. One of the interesting lessons is that if you stop this side of the wall, then you never find out where the wall really is.
But that's what we have to do. And uh uh so but uh so you have to stop. And I believe that the person who has uh a big brain and a little money and a lot of time and uh exceptional insight can find great bargains. Uh but you know that's that's a pretty daunting list and I don't think that Buffett's guarantee uh necessarily extends to everybody in this room.
Do you see any unhealthy trends in valuation in the market today the same way tech or housing was valued in the past? Yes, I do. Um because uh to the the market extends uh the the menu extends the what we call the capital market line extends from what's called the risk-free rate. The risk-free rate is the rate generally speaking on the 30-day Treasury bill.
And of course, if you can get 3% on the risk-free rate, then you in order to tie up your money for five years in a fiveyear Treasury, you want four. And to get it 10 years, you want five. And to if you can get 10 years on a government security uh 5%, then in order to t go into a corporate security which has some credit risk, you would demand six.
And to go into a high yield bond, you demand 12 and so forth. So there's a there's a kind of a process called equilibration. Uh which makes things line up in terms of relative risk and return, but always tied pegged from the risk-free rate. Today the risk-free rate is zero. So everything that I just named the this capital market line has had a parallel downward shift and so it's before the crisis I had you know uh sir Rob mentioned about the fact that I turned bearish all my money was in was in treasuries uh all the money that I had outside of oak tree was in treasuries and I was getting 6 and a.5% for 1 2 3 4 5 sixyear maturities I was getting income and saf safety.
Today you have a choice income or safety because the things today that are highly safe pay no income you know and if you go to Fidelity conduct an experiment go to Fidelity or Vanguard or big mutual fund firm and go online and look at their menu of offerings and what is the current yield uh current net yield after fees and expenses and for you'll see that for money market and short-term treasuries and maybe intermediate chain treasury the yield is zero So just think the guy is watching the Super Bowl in his undershirt.
He gets his statement from Fidelity. He opens it up and it says, "The yield on your fund is now zero." He grabs the phone. He calls the 800 number. He says, "Get me out of that fund that yields zero and put me in the one that yields six." And he becomes a high yield bond investor. He has no idea why.
He doesn't know what a high yield bond is. He doesn't understand what the dangers are. He doesn't understand how to pick a high yield bond manager, but he's seduced by that 6% versus zero. And all around the investment world today, people are chasing return. They don't like the low returns that are available on safe instruments.
They're going for the for the gusto. They're going for riskier instruments and they're doing it mindlessly. And uh I promised you I'd mentioned some memos. I thought forgot to do that. But if you go back, I wrote one in March of '07 called the race to the bottom. And I talked about the fact that when people are number one eager to invest and number two not sufficiently risk conscious, they do risky things.
And when people do risky things, the market becomes a risky place. And that's why Buffett says the less prudence with which others conduct our affairs, the greater the prudence with which we must conduct our own affairs. And that is going on now to some extent because people can't get a good return from safe instruments.
They're going into the risky ones and they're bidding, you know. So there's a there's a race to the bottom. It's like an auction. Now, if you want to buy a painting at Sbees, there's an auction and the painting goes to the person who pays the highest price. But in the investment world, it's a reverse auction.
Well, sometimes you pay highest price, but sometimes you you bid in lowest return. So, there's a there's a uh there's a bond that's going to be issued by a company. I say I demand 7% interest and this fellow says, "No, I'll take six." And that guy says, "I'll take five." I say, "I want protective covenants to make sure that the company can't do things that that ruins its own creditworthiness." He says, "I'll do it with less covenants." And that guy says, "I'll take I'll do it with no covenants.
What happens? The bond is issued at 5% with no covenants. And that's the race to the bottom. And anybody who participates in that bond probably, you know, could be making a mistake. And that's going on now. Not to the same terrible extent that it was in ' 06 and 07, but you got to be be careful. Today, Oak Tree's motto for the last three and a half years has been move forward, but with caution.
Caution has to be a very important component of everybody's actions today. Well, thank you very much for being with me and I hope you enjoyed it.
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