Oaktree Capital Management and Howard Marks

behavioral finance: In response, Howard Marks, the respected co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, offers an excellent view of behavioral finance in a recent memo titled On the Couch. . To the question of whether the markets’ current volatility is setting up another deep plunge like investors suffered in 2008, Marks says no, but not without trepidation, and his reasoning is worth a closer look, according to Market Watch. For starters, Marks discounts the likelihood of a bust because, he writes, we haven’t had a boom . That true about the U.S. economy, but more difficult to believe about the U.S. stock market. So it not without reason that the global stock markets’ gyrations of the past few weeks should trigger a fear of another 2008-like financial crisis. The S&P 500 SPX, -1.09% gained 162%, including dividends, from 2009 through 2015. Moreover, this boom has been broad. Such a gain, which equals a 15% annualized return over a seven-year stretch, seems like it should be called a boom. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.