In this episode, Howard Marks — co-chairman of Oaktree Capital and one of the most careful thinkers on risk in the business — works through the question everyone is circling: are markets excessively exuberant, or is this simply what optimism looks like before it's proven right?
Marks makes a distinction most commentary misses. A bubble isn't a price level; it's a state of mind. It's what happens when investors stop asking whether an asset is worth what it costs and start believing that no price is too high. The technology can be genuinely transformative and the stocks can still be a bad investment. Both things have been true before.
We look at where today's valuations sit against the historical record — what buying into elevated multiples has meant for returns over the following decade, and why the answer has been remarkably consistent even when the underlying story was sound. High prices don't predict crashes. They predict lower future returns. That's a less dramatic claim and a far more useful one.
Then the practical part: how do you actually invest here? Not by going to cash and waiting for a signal that never comes with a bell attached. Marks's answer is about posture — where you sit on the aggressive-to-defensive dial, what you're being paid to take risk, and the discipline of calibration over prediction.
If you've been wondering whether to trim, add, or simply hold your nerve, this is the conversation to sit with.
In this episode:
Original speech/interview by Howard Marks, interviewed on the Prof G Podcast (2026). Sweat Your Assets re-edited the interview.