Ben Carlson, Columnist

Separating the Dos From the Don'ts of Investing

Even doing nothing is a decision.

September 15, 2017 at 2:13 PM UTC

Updated on

September 15, 2017 at 7:26 PM UTC

Ben Carlson is director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. He is the author of "Organizational Alpha: How to Add Value in Institutional Asset Management."

Finding a path.
Photographer: Brad Barket/Getty Images

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In late July, Oaktree Capital’s Howard Marks put out a memo describing current investment trends that could turn out to be mistakes. Marks urged caution on equity valuations, low volatility, FAANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google), ETFs, interest rates, private equity, venture capital and even bitcoin.

Caution alone is not an investment strategy, so Marks penned a follow-up memo last week to give investors six options for how to invest in a low-return world: