저자: HowardMarks · 외국인
요약 보기
하워드 막스는 시장 타이밍은 추측이며 시장 사이클의 현재 위치를 이해하는 것이 핵심이라고 주장한다. 현재 자산 전반에 과열 신호(과도한 낙관, 낮은 위험회피, 과잉 자금 대비 부족한 투자 아이디어)가 일부 나타나므로 공격보다 방어에 비중을 둘 것을 권한다. 다만 전량 현금화나 시장 이탈은 권하지 않는다. 신용시장에서는 자금 유입으로 금리 스프레드와 보호조항(covenant)이 약화되는 '바닥을 향한 경쟁(race to the bottom)'이 진행 중이라고 경고한다. 레버리지론은 좋은 자산이지만 가격이 과도하게 오르면 위험해지며, 침체 시 가장 먼저 손실이 나는 곳이 신용 상품일 수 있다고 본다. 주식에서는 FAANG(페이스북·애플·아마존·넷플릭스·구글 계열) 등 고성장 대형주에 대한 높은 밸류에이션이 낙관과 위험 감수 성향을 보여준다고 언급했으며, 해당 종목들이 최근 급락 등 변동성을 보였다는 점을 상기시켰다. 트럼프 세제 개편은 기업 이익을 늘리는 자극 요인이지만, 경기 과열과 인플레이션, 금리 인상을 유발해 부채가 많은 기업에 타격을 줄 수 있다고 봤다. 결론적으로 명확한 방향 예측보다는 위험 관리와 신중함을 강조하며, 특정 대상 자산에 대한 1~3개월 가격 방향 발언은 없다.
다듬은 글
Warren Buffett calls his last book a rarity in its usefulness. My copy of his new book, *Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side*, is already dog-eared, which means it won't become something to prop a door open or put a cup on. Joining us now is Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital, which manages over $120 billion in assets. Hello, Howard, and thanks for joining us. It's nice to be here.
Yeah, great to have you. So, *Mastering the Market Cycle*. What is the difference between mastering the market cycle and timing the market?
Timing the market is guessing what's going to happen tomorrow. In my opinion, the key to mastering the market cycle is understanding where it is today. We never know what's going to happen tomorrow, and the people who think they do tend to screw up. But if we have a sense of where we are in the cycle, we know something about the probability distribution of returns we're facing, and I think that's about the best we can do.
With regard to the future, in your most recent memo you expressed some caution on the overall market. You just outlined some of your thinking, and what are the biggest red flags you're seeing across assets?
I like your use of the phrase "across assets," because these factors affect basically everything. I've been doing this for 50 years, and when I've seen booms, they were invariably characterized by three things: too much optimism, too little risk aversion and caution, and too much money chasing too few ideas. To some extent, those things are present today, so it's time to start thinking about caution.
Can you talk about a few areas where, as you call them, the seven most dangerous words in investing are most present?
What's interesting is that in your most recent memo, which you put out last week, you wouldn't say you're sanguine on equity markets. I'm certainly not waving a red flag on equities, but we're perhaps seeing red flags in some debt markets.
Yes. In recent years, not a lot of money has flowed into equities, but a lot has flowed into debt. People like the idea of a debt instrument that pays interest and returns your money at a point in time, and they feel assured by that. When money flows in, the buyers have more money to spend, which tends to push prices up. With securities prices up, future returns go down, safety goes down, and risk goes up.
So credit is an example. Say I want to borrow money. You say you want 5%, I say I'll take 4%, you say I'll take 3%. You say you need a full set of covenants, I say I don't need many, and I say I'll take it without covenants. So I get to make a 3% covenant-lite loan, but am I the winner or the loser?
That's the key. This is a process I call the race to the bottom. I wrote a memo by that title back in February 2007, and to some extent it's happening now. As you quote a lot, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Mark Twain said that.
Right now you've also written that debt instruments are going to be found at ground zero when things go wrong. We've been talking about leveraged loans, which seem like the new boogeyman on Wall Street. What do you think of them?
The key for you, your viewers, and everybody to understand is that there's no such thing as a good idea or a bad idea until we talk about price. It's not what you buy, I always say, it's what you pay. Leveraged loans are a great idea: they pay interest, they repay principal, they're senior in the issuer's capital structure, and they're generally tied to floating rates, so you don't have interest rate risk. But at what price? No matter how good the merits are, things can become overpriced when money is flowing in strongly. Leveraged loans can become overpriced, and some are.
What's the average investor supposed to do? You've read the book, and I'm like, I've got to get under the desk and move to cash.
You already have that. No, I don't want you under the desk, and I don't want you moving to cash. What should you do? It's scary when you go through this and hear, "Oh my gosh, we're in a really bad time." Let me set the scene. There are two risks in investing: the risk of losing money and the risk of missing opportunity. You can eliminate either one, but that puts you firmly in the crosshairs of the other. Or you can balance the two. How should you balance them at this time? Should you worry more about losing money or about missing opportunity?
I'd say the former. I'm not saying get out of the market, I'm not saying go to cash, and I'm not saying this is the worst thing I've ever seen. I'm saying I'd emphasize caution to avoid losses over aggressiveness and the risk of missing out.
What does that mean?
Anything you want to do in the investment business, whether it's stocks, bonds, loans, mutual funds, or money managers, you can do aggressively or defensively. Today is a time to overweight defense, not to go entirely toward defense. As you say, that means cash and getting out of the market. I'm not suggesting that, and I don't think anybody should do it unless they're hypersensitive to losses. But this is a time for caution.
Going back to hot sectors, or really hot stocks: last year you wrote about the FANG names. You said they may well be the winners of tomorrow, but also that giving human nature the best will eventually cause them to be overpriced, even if they have great fundamentals. Have you changed or updated your thinking on those names, or does the story remain the same? Some of these stocks have doubled since you wrote that memo.
I wish you wouldn't say that, Miles. [laughs] The truth is I didn't want to point a finger at the FANGs. I'm not an expert on them, and we don't invest in the stock market at Oaktree. What I was saying is that people's willingness to highly value companies, not on their present assets but on their long-term potential, is indicative of optimism, faith, and risk tolerance. My book is about knowing what's going on in the market, and that's just one example.
Many of the FANGs have had severe hiccups in the last nine months. If somebody owned them and they gapped down 20% and they lost faith and sold, that's dangerous. The point is you have to assess and control the risk in your portfolio.
You like to draw the market cycle. I'm wondering whether the Trump tax cuts have changed what's happening with your drawing.
Let me say one thing. Go back two years, and there were two things everybody was sure of: Trump would lose, and if he somehow won, the market would collapse. Trump won, and the market went up. That should convince everybody, as it has me, that we don't know what the future holds, how things will happen, or how markets will react.
As for the tax cut, it's very stimulative. It was very popular with business and is causing company profits to expand, which is good. But there are two questions. First, no matter how good things go, they can become overpriced. Has that happened, and will it happen? Second, since it's stimulative to an already healthy economy, it raises the risk of the economy overheating, bringing higher inflation and causing the Fed to raise interest rates even more to cool things off. That will hurt some indebted companies.
The interesting thing in investing is that everything has two sides. That's the problem. But I just want the answer. It doesn't seem like there are two sides. Sometimes you say "on one hand, on the other hand," and sometimes you say "on the third hand," so I don't know what to do.
Well, then I'm communicating clearly. [laughs] Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner, said to me when I was completing my last book, in time to get it in the book, "None of this is meant to be easy, and anybody who thinks it's easy is stupid." We're talking about making money. Everybody wants to make money, and it's highly competitive. Why should it be easy?
Real quick, we just had the Alphabet chairman, John Hennessy, here with his book, and he gave pages of recommendations of books he's read. You read a lot and write about it. What are you reading right now?
I'm reading a book called *Factfulness*. It encourages people not to respond to what's going on emotionally, but to be analytical, seek out the truth, overcome the bias of panicking, and be factual. I think it's a great book.
All right, look into it. If Miles and I read it, can we have a book club weekend?
Okay, fantastic. I love it.
Howard Marks, author of *Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side*, thank you so much for coming by. It was fascinating to talk with you. We read your memos, so it's really fun to have you here.
Thank you for having me.
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