Oaktree Capital Group, LLC (NYSE: OAK) (“Oaktree”) today announced the release of a new book by Oaktree Co-Chairman and Co-Founder Howard Marks, “Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side,” published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Mastering the Market Cycle reveals how shrewd observation of cycles can open any investor’s eyes to opportunities that are often hidden in plain sight. In this latest book, Mr. Marks helps investors of all experience levels and abilities to sharpen the skills necessary to recognize market cycles and understand how they work. To do so, Mr. Marks recommends that investors look to three things: recent history, human emotion and asset pricing. Once attuned to these signs, investors will be better equipped to interpret the volatility of market cycles and will see a logical pattern that will bring clarity to their investment decisions.

Mastering the Market Cycle draws from Mr. Marks’s fifty-year investment management career and his firsthand experience successfully steering Oaktree through multiple market cycles to show readers how to focus a cycle-savvy lens on any aspect of investing, from credit to real estate to stocks. With a clearer understanding of where the market is positioned, what that implies for its future movements, and what to do as a result, readers will learn to invest with confidence.

Marks challenges investors to ask themselves these questions:

  • Are we close to the beginning of an upswing, or in the late stages?
  • If a particular cycle has been rising for a while, has it gone so far that we’re now in dangerous territory?
  • Are investors appropriately risk-averse or foolishly risk-tolerant?
  • Is the market overheated (and overpriced), or is it frigid (and thus cheap) because of what’s been going on cyclically?
  • Taken together, does our current position in the cycle imply that we should emphasize defensiveness or aggressiveness?

Mastering the Market Cycle is available for sale at all bookstores nationwide. For more information, please visit masteringthemarketcycle.com or follow Howard Marks on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

About Howard Marks

Howard Marks is Co-Chairman and Co-Founder of Oaktree, a leading investment management firm managing more than $120 billion in assets. Since the formation of Oaktree in 1995, Mr. Marks has been responsible for ensuring the firm's adherence to its core investment philosophy; communicating closely with clients concerning products and strategies; and contributing his experience to big-picture decisions relating to investments and corporate direction. From 1985 until 1995, Mr. Marks led the groups at The TCW Group, Inc. that were responsible for investments in distressed debt, high yield bonds, and convertible securities. He was also Chief Investment Officer for Domestic Fixed Income at TCW. Previously, Mr. Marks was with Citicorp Investment Management for 16 years, where from 1978 to 1985 he was Vice President and senior portfolio manager in charge of convertible and high yield securities. Between 1969 and 1978, he was an equity research analyst and, subsequently, Citicorp's Director of Research. Mr. Marks holds a B.S.Ec. degree cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a major in finance and an M.B.A. in accounting and marketing from the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago, where he received the George Hay Brown Prize. He is a CFA® charterholder. Mr. Marks is a Trustee and Chairman of the Investment Committee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Chairman of the Investment Committee and Board of Trustees of the Royal Drawing School; and an Emeritus Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, where from 2000 to 2010 he chaired the Investment Board.

About Oaktree

Oaktree is a leader among global investment managers specializing in alternative investments, with $122 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2018. The firm emphasizes an opportunistic, value-oriented and risk-controlled approach to investments in credit, private equity, real assets and listed equities. The firm has over 900 employees and offices in 18 cities worldwide. For additional information, please visit Oaktree’s website at www.oaktreecapital.com.