Howard Marks quotes – Learn from the bests 

Famous traders

Howard Marks quotes help you learn trading secrets that traders often need. His quotes are quite popular among traders and investors. Why so? Because they learn a great deal about almost every aspect of trading ranging from security prices to trading risks.

Do you also want to learn from the best? Then Howard Marks quotes offer the best starting point for learning about some top success formulas. 

Who is Howard Marks?

Howard Marks is a trader and investor. He started his professional career at Citibank in senior positions. Later on, he had an opportunity to join TCW in 1985 which helped the company grow tremendously. 

Howard Marks co-founded Oaktree Capital Management in 1995 after leaving TCS after 10-year service. In 2022, his net worth is estimated to be $2.2 billion earning him a spot on the list of the richest persons in the United States. 

Howard Marks is also a writer and an author. He has written three widely popular books:

  1. The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor 
  2. The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor
  3. Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side

Howard Marks quotes

Here are some beautiful Howard Marks quotes that help you learn some top trading secrets. Understand Marks’ point of view to transform your trading and hit success.

Experience quotes

“I like to say, “Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

“Investors with no knowledge of (or concern for) profits, dividends, valuation, or the conduct of business simply cannot possess the resolve needed to do the right thing at the right time.”

“Warren Buffett tells us, “The less prudence with which others conduct their affairs, the greater the prudence with which we should conduct our own affairs.”

“There are old investors, and there are bold investors, but there are no old bold investors.”

“Being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.” 

“What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.”

“Everything you needed to know in the years leading up to the crash could be discerned through awareness of what was going on in the present.”

“Voltaire: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” 

Investing quotes

“Investing is a popularity contest, and the most dangerous thing is to buy something at the peak of its popularity. At that point, all favorable facts and opinions are already factored into its price, and no new buyers are left to emerge.”

Success quotes

“Investment success doesn’t come from “buying good things,” but rather from “buying things well.”

Investment risks

 “As I’ve indicated earlier, the riskiest thing in the world is the belief that there’s no risk. By the same token, the safest (and most rewarding) time to buy usually comes when everyone is convinced there’s no hope.”

“There’s a big difference between probability and outcome. Probable things fail to happen—and improbable things happen—all the time.” That’s one of the most important things you can know about investment risk.”

“Here’s the key to understanding risk: it’s largely a matter of opinion.”

“Risk means uncertainty about which outcome will occur and about the possibility of loss when the unfavorable ones do.”

Investment decisions 

“Every once in a while, an up-or-down-leg goes on for a long time and/or to a great extreme and people start to say “this time it’s different.” They cite the changes in geopolitics, institutions, technology, or behavior that have rendered the “old rules” obsolete. They make investment decisions that extrapolate the recent trend. And then it turns out that the old rules still apply and the cycle resumes. In the end, trees don’t grow to the sky, and few things go to zero.”

“The biggest investing errors come not from factors that are informational or analytical, but from those that are psychological. Investor”

“An accurate estimate of intrinsic value is the essential foundation for steady, unemotional and potentially profitable investing.”

 “Like so many other things in the investment world that might be tried on the basis of certitude and precision, waiting for the bottom to start buying is a great example of folly. So if targeting the bottom is wrong, when should you buy? The answer’s simple: when the price is below intrinsic value.”

“How? Try to travel into the future and look back. In 2023, do you think you’re more likely to say, “Back in 2018, I wish I’d been more aggressive” or “Back in 2018, I wish I’d been more defensive”? And is there anything today about which you’d be likely to say, “In 2018, I missed the chance of a lifetime to buy XYZ”? What you think you might say a few years down the road can help you figure out what you should do today.”

Outcome quotes

“We have to practice defensive investing since many of the outcomes are likely to go against us. It’s more important to ensure survival under negative outcomes than it is to guarantee maximum returns under favorable ones.”

“There’s a big difference between probability and outcome. Probable things fail to happen—and improbable things happen—all the time.” That”

Bull market quotes

“The three stages of a bull market”: the first stage, when only a few unusually perceptive people believe things will get better, the second stage when most investors realize that improvement is actually taking place, and the third stage when everyone concludes things will get better forever.”

Price quotes

“Buying something for less than its value. In my opinion, this is what it’s all about—the most dependable way to make money. Buying at a discount from intrinsic value and having the asset’s price move toward its value doesn’t require serendipity; it just requires that market participants wake up to reality. When the market’s functioning properly, value exerts a magnetic pull on price.”

“Selling for more than your asset’s worth. Everyone hopes a buyer will come along who’s willing to overpay for what they have for sale. But certainly, the hoped-for arrival of this sucker can’t be counted on. Unlike having an underpriced asset move to its fair value, expecting appreciation on the part of a fairly priced or overpriced asset requires irrationality on the part of buyers that absolutely cannot be considered dependable.”

“People should like something less when its price rises, but in investing they often like it more.”

“Prices are too high” is far from synonymous with “the next move will be downward.” Things can be overpriced and stay that way for a long time . . . or become far more so.”

Types of investors quotes

“There’s only one way to describe most investors: trend followers. Superior investors are the exact opposite. Superior investing, as I hope I’ve convinced you by now, requires second-level thinking—a way of thinking that’s different from that of others, more complex, and more insightful.”

Future forecasting quotes

“Once in a while, however, the future turns out to be very different from the past. It’s at these times that accurate forecasts would be of great value. It’s also at these times that forecasts are least likely to be correct. Some forecasters may turn out to be correct at these pivotal moments, suggesting that it’s possible to correctly”

Russell Crane

Russell Crane

Russell is an Algorithmic & Technical Analyst Trader @ PatternsWizard.
His passion is to share his knowledge about TA, patterns & more. Why hope for your trading to work when you can precisely know the performance stat of every pattern?

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