Howard Marks
Oaktree Capital
Profile & Investment Philosophy
Howard Marks and Oaktree Capital turned defensive in Q2 2026. The 13F book grew to $7.2 billion across 145 positions, but its two largest line items are index hedges: a brand-new $1.0 billion put on the S&P 500 ETF and a 55% larger put on the Nasdaq-100 ETF, together roughly 23% of the disclosed portfolio. Oaktree exited Petrobras, JetBlue, Nokia, Coinbase and the XOP energy ETF, trimmed Garrett Motion by 48%, and added new stakes in Indivior, Sea Limited and Viasat. TORM PLC and Expand Energy remain the top long equity holdings — consistent with Marks’ insistence that risk control, not forecasting, drives long-term returns.
Track Record
Marks co-founded Oaktree Capital in 1995 after running the high-yield desk at TCW. Oaktree grew into one of the world's largest alternative-credit managers, with roughly $200 billion in AUM across distressed debt, high yield, private credit and real estate, and was partially acquired by Brookfield in 2019. Its flagship distressed-debt funds have delivered net IRRs in the mid-teens across multiple cycles, with the post-2001 and post-2008 vintages especially strong. Marks' investor memos, written since 1990, are required reading inside the industry; Warren Buffett has publicly endorsed them. He is a Wharton and Booth graduate and author of ‚The Most Important Thing' and ‚Mastering the Market Cycle'.
Signature Trades
Current Strategy (2026)
Marks does not run a 13F-driven equity book; Oaktree's exposure is concentrated in private credit, distressed debt and real estate. His 2025-2026 memos have hammered one theme: the ‚sea change' in interest rates from a 40-year tailwind to a structural headwind, making credit the most attractive risk-adjusted asset class for the first time in over a decade. Oaktree is leaning heavily into senior direct lending at low-double-digit yields, opportunistic real-estate credit where regional banks have retreated, and is staging dry powder for a possible default cycle as the maturity wall in leveraged loans approaches. He has been cautious on equities, arguing the index-level multiple is not pricing the new cost of capital. The base case: clip credit coupons, get paid to wait, deploy aggressively if defaults rise.
BMI Counter-Take
Marks is the most useful macro voice in the industry precisely because he does not predict — he calibrates. The ‚sea change' framing is correct and underpriced by retail: bonds and private credit now compete seriously with equities for the first time since 2008. What we would push back on is the implied bearishness on equities. The same higher-for-longer regime that boosts credit yields also keeps marginal capital expensive, which is bullish for incumbent mega-cap free-cash-flow machines. The right read is not ‚own credit, sell stocks' — it is ‚stop overpaying for narrative growth, demand cash today'. The discipline transfers cleanly.
Current Portfolio
LATEST 13F 2026-06-30Latest SEC Form 13F filing. Total portfolio value: $7.21 B. Holdings: 145 positions.
| Security | Type | Shares | Δ vs Prev | Value ($) | Portfolio % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State Str Spdr S&P 500 ETF T | Put | 1.36 M | ★ NEW | $1.01 B | 14.0 % |
| Invesco Qqq Trust Series 1 | Put | 885,000 | +55.3% | $652 M | 9.04 % |
| Torm PLC | Common | 20.3 M | -14.7% | $524 M | 7.28 % |
| Expand Energy Corp. | Common | 5.24 M | — | $478 M | 6.63 % |
| Garrett Motion Inc. | Common | 7.59 M | -48.0% | $275 M | 3.82 % |
| Anglogold Ashanti PLC | Common | 3.18 M | -1.4% | $257 M | 3.57 % |
| Indivior Pharmaceuticals Inc. | Common | 6.13 M | ★ NEW | $251 M | 3.49 % |
| Telephone And Data Systems Inc. | Common | 5.28 M | +23.1% | $196 M | 2.71 % |
| Viper Energy Inc. | Common | 3.79 M | — | $161 M | 2.23 % |
| Core Scientific Inc. | Call | 5.00 M | +42.9% | $128 M | 1.78 % |
SOURCE: SEC Form 13F (2026-08-14). BMI Smart Money Tracker.