Travel to clients abroad and preoccupation with my coming book on cycles (final draft submitted just the other day) have combined to keep me from writing a memo since September, but fortunately not from thinking. Thus I have ideas to set down on two significant subjects: the market environment and the new tax law. Further, I’m highly motivated to do so, since if I skip a few months, people start writing in, “Are you sick?” More on the Markets As I wrote in September (“Yet Again?”), some readers of my July memo, “There They Go Again . . . Again,” perceived my stance as ultra-bearish. This was epitomized by the TV commentator who reported, “Howard Marks says it’s time to get out.” As I said in September, there are two things I would never say (since they require far more certainty than I consider attainable): “get out” and “it’s time.” It’s rare for the market pendulum to reach such an extreme that views can properly be black-or-white. Most markets are far too uncertain and nuanced to permit such unequivocal, sweeping statements. https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/howard-marks-memos In September I observed that the cautionary July memo hadn’t said much with respect to what people actually should do about the markets, and I tried to remedy that. Now I want to provide a more complete discussion regarding today’s markets, covering the pros as well as the cons.