Mullooly Asset Management

Here at Mullooly Asset Management, we help a lot of individuals manage their retirement accounts at work. In doing so, we’ve taken a look at countless 401k’s, 457’s and 403b’s. Within many of these employer sponsored plans, a Roth option is offered. I’ve noticed some confusion between these Roth 401k’s (or Roth 403b’s…or Roth 457’s) […]

If you’ve looked into buying life insurance before, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the adage, “Buy term and invest the difference”. We do not sell insurance at Mullooly Asset Management or hold ourselves out to be insurance experts. However, we do help our clients out with basic financial planning, and in doing so insurance frequently […]

On this week’s podcast Tim and I discuss why we’re incapable of telling people what age they’ll be able to retire at. This might be disappointing to hear, but it’s the truth. We aren’t able to predict what age you’ll be able to retire at or how much money you’ll need to do so with […]

At Mullooly Asset Management, one of the foundations of our strategy is point and figure charting. Point and figure charting is a type of technical anaylsis that tracks security prices through columns of X’s and O’s. People successfully use other types of technical analysis to manage money, but we prefer point and figure because we […]

It may not always be appropriate to max out your 401k contributions. That’s right, Tom and I make the case for not maxing out your 401k contributions on this week’s Mullooly Asset Management podcast. Probably not what you were expecting to hear, right? Let me preface this post by saying that most of the time, […]

We’ve definitely seen an increase in job creation recently. This is generally a good economic sign: more jobs being created means consumers are more willing to spend money, thus stimulating the economy. We haven’t seen this lately though, leaving many to wonder what’s up? On this week’s Mullooly Asset Management podcast, Tom and Tim discuss why […]

“I’m saving for a down payment on a home.” “I’m saving for my child’s college education.” “I’m saving for retirement.” These are three very different goals, yet all have been deemed “saving”. Not to get picky, but there’s a big difference between saving and investing. It’s important to clarify which one you’re doing. On this week’s […]

One of the most frequently quoted time periods in finance is the ambiguous “long term”. We’re all supposed to be long-term investors, and studies show that “over the long term” results will be desirable. This sounds nice, but what is this mythical “long term”? Is there a defined period of time that qualifies as “long […]

“Fee-based…fee-only…same thing, right?”. We’ve heard this before, and if it sounds correct to you then the brokerage industry’s obfuscation has succeeded. Just last week, Tom and Brendan discussed why you need to ask how your advisor is compensated. With so many advisors taking the dually-registered route these days, it’s integral that you understand their business […]

Let’s lay out a hypothetical situation here: You haven’t been feeling well and decide that a trip to your doctor is in order. After describing your symptoms to the doctor, they decide to prescribe you Drug A for treatment. You thank the doctor, fill your prescription and move on. Two weeks later, you find out […]

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) began trading in January of 1993. That was the first exchange traded fund, and we’ve seen quite the evolution since then. Flash forward 22 years and ETFs have become a market fixture. From ETFs we’ve seen another exchange traded product develop: exchange traded notes or ETNs. Exchange traded note…exchange traded […]

Here at Mullooly Asset Management we use a form of technical analysis called point and figure charting to manage investments. In point and figure, one of the main purposes the chart has it to help us identify trends. Whether we’re looking at a stock, index, mutual fund, ETF or commodity, the chart will show us […]

Keeping things in perspective is important. Investors fall victim to cognitive biases sometimes, but we can do our best to avoid that type of behavior. With the strong markets seen in 2012, 2013, and 2014, investors are primed for recency bias to cloud their judgement. It’s imperative to remember that even in good years, the […]

According to many market experts, investors should buy and hold always and forever, right? If you’ve been told that before you might be surprised to learn that even the S&P 500 changes its holdings every so often. In fact, according to a recent Business Insider article: “Since 1980, over 320 companies were deleted from the […]

On this week’s Mullooly Asset Management podcast, Tom and Brendan discuss a cognitive bias known as the disposition effect. Cognitive biases such as the disposition effect, loss aversion, confirmation bias, and others can negatively affect investment performance. Tom and Brendan specifically address the disposition effect and how our rules based approach at Mullooly Asset Management […]

Over the years we’ve fielded calls from people asking us different variations of this question: “I was offered an 8% guaranteed annuity by my insurance guy and wondered what you thought?”. That’s why Tom and Brendan decided to discuss high interest annuities on this week’s Mullooly Asset Management podcast. These products may not work the […]

On this week’s Mullooly Asset Management podcast, Tom and Brendan discuss why load mutual funds don’t make sense. To explain what’s wrong with load mutual funds, we must first make sure that everybody understands the difference between load and no-load funds. For starters, a load is the equivalent of a sales charge or commission. Load Mutual […]

People are starting to notice that it costs less to fill up their car at the gas station, and it’s due to the considerable drop we’ve seen in oil prices. A story line that’s been circulating centers around US fracking and its devastating effects on the price of crude oil. We’ll never know all of […]

Back in September, Tom and Brendan discussed the industry push for nontransparent active ETF’s (https://mullooly.net/nontransparent-active-etfs/7641). Today they update the situation as it’s continued to develop. Eaton Vance received SEC approval to create an exchange traded managed fund or ETMF. Eaton Vance, BlackRock, and State Street were among the investment companies who sought approval for a...

Being consistent is a critical concept we must learn during life. Setting his recent and questionable financial advice aside, Tony Robbins has said that, “It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently”. This is 100% accurate. Sadly the same cannot be said for his “All […]

You’ve almost certainly heard the old stock market adage, “Sell in May and go away”. It’s existed for decades now, but a lot of investors have no idea where it came from. On this week’s Mullooly Asset Management podcast, Tom and Brendan discuss this adage, the topic of stock market seasonality, and their functionality in […]

On this week’s Mullooly Asset Management podcast, Tom and Brendan discuss an article they recently read. Interestingly enough, the article came from Costco Connection magazine. Not the typical reading material of the Mullooly Asset Management team, but it was a good read none the less. Costco featured an “Ask Suze Orman” column where readers sent […]

With the volatility we’ve seen this October, Tom and Brendan took the opportunity to examine two underlying causes of bear markets. We experienced a near 10% peak to trough correction in the S&p 500 this month, but it’s looking like we’re going to finish the month essentially flat. Volatility causes people to worry though. So […]

Today we read an interesting article from Marketwatch titled, “The Fed is Deliberately Stealing from Savers”. Yes, that’s right. Janet Yellen and the rest of the Fed are thieves. You read it it first at Marketwatch. We’ll link to their post below. The author asserts that: The academic name for the Fed’s current policy is […]

Tom and Brendan normally discuss big picture topics on the Mullooly Asset Management podcast. However, this week they decided that a market update would be best. The current market volatility is what’s on everybody’s mind. Markets moved lower at the open today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 360 points just a few minutes […]