The Most Important Thing Illuminated by Howard Marks

I find this book an enjoyable read which covers heavily on the aspect of risk and shaped my investing philosophy. I’d rate this book about 8/10.

The book was not that hard as compared to The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. However, one may still require effort to understand some of the concepts. Apart from that, it opens up a new dimension to what is RISK really all about. Howard practices value-defensive style of investment. Clicking on the image below might give you a better idea.

Particularly, I found chapter 21 interesting where he distilled the importance of his book into one chapter.

I quote:

“The best foundation for a successfull investment – or a successful investment career – is value. You must have a good idea of what the thing you’re considering buying is worth. There are many components to this and many ways to look at it. To over-simplify, there’s cash on the books and value of the tangible assets; the ability of the company or asset to generate cash; and the potential for these things to increase.

To achieve superior investment results, your insight into value has to be superior. Thus you must learn things others don’t, see things differently or do a better job of analyzing them – ideally, all three.”

Finally, I start to practice something called the “second-level” thinking. If an investor knows what I am knowing, where is my superior edge? To think deeper and to think more clearer.

This comes from the fact that as an investor, we need to read widely and broadly. It helps to allow us to think more holistically.