Famed distressed debt investor Howard Marks is pessimistic about the recovery of US and global assets shocked by the Covid-19 pandemic, predicting price markdowns, increased haircuts and a dearth of bailouts for some lenders.

“Social isolation, disease and death, economic contraction, enormous reliance on government action, and uncertainty about the long-term effects are all with us, and the main questions surround how far they will go,” he wrote in a 31 March memo published by Oaktree Capital Management, the company he co-founded in 1995.