Howard Marks, Co-Chairman of Oaktree Capital, stated in an interview on October 18, as reported by Bloomberg, that he does not currently believe the market has reached a true bubble state. He pointed out that one of the essential characteristics of a bubble is investors' "unawareness" of risk, and the fact that Wall Street is widely alert to bubble risks precisely indicates the absence of such "unawareness." He believes that if enough people cautiously question whether there is a bubble, the market will behave with restraint. He cited data indicating that the average forward P/E ratio for the five largest tech stocks by market capitalization in the S&P 500 is currently 23x, significantly lower than the 65x seen before the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000, despite the Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings (CAPE) ratio being near its historical high of 41x.