The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for The Thoughtful Investor

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars | 3,412 ratings

Price: 15.71

Last update: 01-07-2025


About this item

Howard Marks, the chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, is renowned for his insightful assessments of market opportunity and risk. After four decades spent ascending to the top of the investment management profession, he is today sought out by the world's leading value investors, and his client memos brim with insightful commentary and a time-tested, fundamental philosophy. Now for the first time, all listeners can benefit from Marks's wisdom, concentrated into a single volume that speaks to both the amateur and seasoned investor.

Informed by a lifetime of experience and study, The Most Important Thing explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career. Using passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today's volatile markets, Marks offers a volume that is part memoir, part creed, with a number of broad takeaways. Marks expounds on such concepts as "second-level thinking", the price/value relationship, patient opportunism, and defensive investing. Frankly and honestly assessing his own decisions - and occasional missteps - he provides valuable lessons for critical thinking, risk assessment, and investment strategy.

Encouraging investors to be "contrarian", Marks wisely judges market cycles and achieves returns through aggressive yet measured action. Which element is the most essential? Successful investing requires thoughtful attention to many separate aspects, and each of Marks's subjects proves to be the most important thing.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Lauchlan Mackinnon, Ph.D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful investing philosophy
    Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2024
    This was an excellent book on core principles and ideas underlying investing. It is not a book on any particular investing strategy, but rather a book on his philosophy of investing, learned over the years from experience, from books, from experts he knows, and through supporting clients.

    It is structured as 18 chapters, each reflecting on a different aspect of investing … each of which is the next “most important thing.” Because, he says, ALL the “things” in the book are important.

    It covers topics such as what risk really is (his notion of risk a much more perceptive and useful idea than the unhelpful nonsense from finance theory, where risk is defined as market volatility), or how to identify value.

    The book is targeted more towards active investors who want to deliver superior performance than market indexes (i.e. significantly beat market averages), which is of course is hard to do. To achieve this, he says, investors need to have uncommon insight or “second level thinking,” and to form a clear understanding of value (so that one can understand the relationship of price to value in the context of any risks).

    If you don’t want to pursue above average performances, he points out, you’d be better off investing in an index fund (or, nowadays, its ETF equivalent) - which out-performs around 90% of active fund managers anyway.

    Outperforming the market index is a “big freaking deal,” which few investors do successfully or consistently. He offers a philosophy for key things to understand and reflect on if you want to go down that path … or if you want to be a better investor in general.

    I recommend the book.
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
    Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2024
    Summarize the common sense of investing which are not so easy to realise when you are in the zone
  • pedrog
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good, not great
    Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2016
    Howard Marks is a value investing genius, with an astounding track record of ~20% p.a. returns for 25+ years. Therefore, I'm happy to read anything he is willing to share. In this book, he shares deeply toughtful insights, but in a somewhat dry, unengaging and repetitive text. Overall a must read, but don't expect an excellent literary experience.

    Although Marks shares his high level investment philosofy, he never shares enough to allow someone to understand exactly how he implements it in practice. How much safety margin? Which level of diversification? How to attribute probabilities to extreme events? Some nitty-gritty and real life examples would have transformed this book from a gospel to a more vivid and practical read.

    This could be accomplished while simultaneosly reducing the lenght of the book. It often feels verbose, with the same ideas repeated in different sections and paraphrased in multiple similar ways. Additionally, his habit of citing his own past writings is unnecessary and baloons the reading time without delivering much value to the reader.
  • Richard M. Rockwood
    5.0 out of 5 stars An investment classic
    Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2011
    Mr. Marks states that when he was attending client meetings over the years he noticed a pattern. He would say in one meeting that that such and such was the most important thing about investing and in later meetings he found himself referencing other items that he titled the most important thing to understand. Upon reflection about this pattern he decided to write a memo in July of 2003 that covered all these critical areas in his investing philosophy.

    This new book expands upon the ideas he covered in that original memo. Topics that are covered include: market efficiency, value, risk, investment cycles, contrarianism, finding bargains, patient opportunism, circle of competence, luck, avoiding pitfalls, etc... In short all the topics that a focus investor needs to understand and be able to place, and use, in their own mental models.

    What does Mr. Marks want his readers to gain from his book? Here are his own words from the introduction of the book:

    "I didn't set out to write a manual for investing. Rather, this book is a statement of my own investment philosophy. I consider it my creed, and in the course of my investment career it has served like a religion. These are the things I believe in, the guideposts that keep me on track. The messages I deliver are the ones I consider the most lasting. I'm confident their relevance will extend beyond today.

    You won't find a how-to book here. There's no surefire recipe for investment success. No step-by-step instructions. No valuation formulas containing mathematical constants or fixed ratios - in fact, very few numbers. Just a way to think that might help you make good decisions and, perhaps more important, avoid the pitfalls that ensnare so many.

    It's not my goal to simplify investing. In fact, the thing I most want to make clear is just how complex it is. Those who try to simplify investing do their audience a great disservice. I'm going to stick to general thoughts on return, risk and process..."

    Mr. Marks has succeeded in his goals in a brilliant manner. There is, quite simply, an incredible amount of wisdom between the covers of his book and an investor is doing them a disservice if they don't read, and re-read, this book. I will be placing it on my shelf right next to the great investments classics of Security Analysis, The Intelligent Investor, the Berkshire Hathaway annual reports, and Margin of Safety. Quite simply I can't recommend it highly enough.

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