Billionaire Howard Marks joked last year that investors should sell all their stock. Now he still maintains bonds are offering 'equity-like returns.'

• Howard Marks joked recently that investors should dump all stock and buy high-yield bonds.
• However, the Oaktree founder notes that "equity-like" returns are being seen in credit markets today. 
• Bonds should make up a larger part of portfolios than in the pre-pandemic era, Marks said in a letter to investors.

It might be time for credit instruments to make up a much larger part of portfolios — maybe even the majority, billionaire Oaktree Capital founder Howard Marks wrote in his latest investor letter.

He said that speaking at a conference in December, he jokingly suggested that investors should sell every single kind of equity asset and use the proceeds to pounce on high-yield bonds.