Program and guest
CNBC’s The Exchange interviews Howard Marks, co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital, about the market sell-off, AI’s unpredictability and the credit market. Original English title: Howard Marks: CNBC The Exchange (2026). The subtitles cover 0:00–14:10; this article covers the full interview.
Key points
- Markets always exaggerate everything. Investors should not take signals from the market; smart participants should exploit areas where they know more than the market. 0:16
- AI is the most unpredictable thing he has seen in his career: it is impossible to work out who will win in five years, what price they will sell at or how much they will earn. 0:42
- Buying debt offers no upside beyond interest and repayment of principal; after that, there are only varying degrees of downside. For uncertain AI exposure, he would rather buy stocks for the upside than lend. 2:16
- Oaktree Capital is still participating in AI infrastructure in a safer way, undertaking only long-term data center projects. Electricity will become a bottleneck, infrastructure capacity will need to expand three- to tenfold, and where the electricity will come from is key. 3:31
- Whether this is a bubble comes down to three questions: Is AI a hallucination? Is the money being invested a bubble? Are the assets individuals can invest in overpriced? The answers to the three questions differ. 4:29
Background and notes
CNBC’s The Exchange interviewed Howard Marks on the day of the market sell-off. Topics included market signals, the choice of AI investment instruments, AI infrastructure and electricity, and the credit market’s response to technology company bond issuance. The subtitles cover 0:00–14:10; this article covers the full interview. The views and timestamps are drawn from the original subtitles; timestamps mark the beginning of the corresponding passages.