Rewnowned investor Howard Marks (Trades, Portfolio) is the chairman of Oaktree Capital. On March 6, he discussed his his market views amidst the covid-19 crisis with Bloomberg. Marks is a measured observer of market cycles, so it is prudent to pay attention to what he says.
The question is whether things are cheap or expensive, which is hard to say. But Marks has been coming on the show and expounding it was hard to get a bargain and markets were generally rich and the mood was very positive.
Today, things are a heck a lot cheaper than two weeks ago. In times of chaos, investors fail to make fine distinctions.
The bottom is the day before the market goes up. It is only judged in retrospect. In his book, "Mastering the Market Cycle," Marks goes into this at length. He doesn't like to time the bottom, but instead becomes more or less aggressively positioned (more or less cash, more or less emphasis on quality) based on what signals from the market are telling him. He isn't bothered if things go down further after he starts buying and he isn't bothered if he's buying already on the way up. It is essentially all about scaling in and out in a favorable way based on his skillset of determining where market valuations are.
Currently, Oaktree is certainly doing some buying.
GuruFocus tracks Oaktree's 13-F, which shows the firm is bargain hunting by buying Bank Bradesco (BBA, Financial), Alibaba Group (BABA, Financial), Broadcom (AVGOP.PDF) and Fortive Corp. (FTV). Please note that Oaktree is primarily a credit shop specializing in distressed debt (which does not show up on a 13-F) and the filings don't show foreign-listed securities.
Disclosure: No positions.
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