Print List Price: | CDN$ 39.00 |
Kindle Price: | CDN$ 27.53 Save CDN$ 11.47 (29%) |
includes free international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet |

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera, scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

![The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor (Columbia Business School Publishing) by [Howard Marks, Paul Johnson, Bruce Greenwald]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51o6K-yhHcL._SY346_.jpg)
Follow the Authors
OK
The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor (Columbia Business School Publishing) Kindle Edition
Amazon Price | New from | Used from |
- Kindle Edition
$27.53 Read with Our Free App - Hardcover
$31.40

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Howard Marks's The Most Important Thing distilled the investing insight of his celebrated client memos into a single volume and, for the first time, made his time-tested philosophy available to general readers. In this edition, Marks's wisdom is joined by the comments, insights, and counterpoints of four renowned investors and investment educators: Christopher C. Davis (Davis Funds), Joel Greenblatt (Gotham Capital), Paul Johnson (Nicusa Capital), and Seth A. Klarman (Baupost Group).
These experts lend insight into such concepts as "second-level thinking," the price/value relationship, patient opportunism, and defensive investing. Marks also adds his own annotations, expanding on his book's original themes and issues. A new chapter addresses the importance of reasonable expectations, and a foreword by Bruce C. Greenwald, called "a guru to Wall Street's gurus" by the New York Times, speaks on value investing, productivity, and the economics of information.
***
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 readers 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. Utilizing 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.
"This is that rarity, a useful book."--Warren Buffett
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherColumbia Business School Publishing
- Publication dateJan. 15 2013
- File size2921 KB
Product description
Review
When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they're the first thing I open and read. I always learn something, and that goes double for his book.
(Praise for The Most Important Thing, Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway)^If you take an exceptional talent and have them obsess about value investing for several decades―including deep thinking about its very essence with written analysis along the way― you may come up with a book as useful to value investors as this one. But don't count on it.
(Praise for The Most Important Thing, Jeremy Grantham, Cofounder and Chief Investment Strategist, Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo)^A clear and expert resource for all investors.
(Praise for The Most Important Thing Kirkus Reviews)^Veteran value-investing manager Howard Marks draws on pithy memos he wrote to clients over the years to dispense insightful advice on everything from risk taking to the role of luck.
(Praise for The Most Important Thing Money Magazine)^The original is great, but if you're willing to spend a bit more money (eBook is $9.99), this new version does have a little more meat to it.
(My Money Blog)^I recommend this book to all who aspire after value investing.
(Aleph Blog / Money Science)^This new edition does the nearly impossible; it takes an already classic text and makes it an even more indispensable tool for investors!
(FocusInvestor.com)^Ultimately The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor is an outstanding read. I'll be referring back to it often. I'd say it's a must-have for every value investor.
(Seeking Alpha)^Enlightening and well detailed.
(Midwest Book Review)^This is a book I recommend you keep on your desk
(Charles Sizemore Forbes.com Moneybuilder)^Marks' The Most Important Thing distilled the investing insight of his celebrated client memos into a single volume and, for the first time, made his time-tested philosophy available to general readers. In this edition, Marks's wisdome is joined by the comments, insights, and counterpoints of four renowned investors.
(Value Walk Blog) --This text refers to the hardcover edition.About the Author
Howard Marks is chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, a Los Angeles-based investment firm with seventy-five billion dollars under management. He holds a bachelor's degree in finance from the Wharton School and an MBA in accounting and marketing from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor.
Bruce C. Greenwald holds the Robert Heilbrunn Professorship of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia Business School and is the academic director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing. He is the coauthor of The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies.
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.Product details
- ASIN : B007SWH6OQ
- Publisher : Columbia Business School Publishing (Jan. 15 2013)
- Language : English
- File size : 2921 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 245 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #249,914 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Howard Marks is chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, a
Los Angeles-based investment firm with $80 billion under management. He
holds a Bachelor's Degree in finance from the Wharton School and an MBA
in accounting and marketing from the University of Chicago.
Paul Johnson runs Nicusa Investment Advisors, an advisory firm focused on helping CEOs and Boards of Directors deal with strategy, capital allocation, shareholder value creation, and corporate communication. Paul applies his 30 years of experience as an investment professional, combined with his more than 20 years as a business school professor, to help senior managers sort through these critical strategic issues.
Paul is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, where he has taught 35 courses since 1992 on securities analysis and value investing to more than 1,500 students. Paul was given the Commitment to Excellence award by the 2016 Executive MBA graduating class in recognition of his outstanding commitment to their educational experience. Paul is also an Adjunct Professor at the Fordham University Graduate Business School, where he teaches a Seminar in Value Investing and was appointed as a Fellow to the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis at Fordham University in August 2015.
Paul is co-author with Paul Sonkin of Pitch the Perfect Investment, The Essential Guide to Winning on Wall Street, scheduled to be published in early 2017. Paul is a contributing annotator to The Most Important Thing Illuminated, by Howard Marks, and co-authored the history of value investing in Columbia Business School: A Century of Ideas, a book celebrating the school’s 100-year anniversary. Paul is also co-author of The Gorilla Game, Picking Winners in High Technology, which reached Business Week’s best seller list and was the number one best-selling investment book on Amazon.com for several weeks in 1998.
Paul has an MBA in Finance from the Executive Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Customer reviews
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from Canada
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Definitely had to do some side learning to understand some concepts as I'm new at this, but the book is written in an easy style that makes it accessible for all.
Love it!
Top reviews from other countries


You can apply this to any type of investment. stocks, real estate etc. If you are expecting some sort of secret from the book that you have never heard before, you will be disappointed like me.


