In this week’s video, Tom discusses the rocky start to 2022 for stocks. While stocks are down, he offers some things to consider.

Are you going to need this money in the next year, two or three?

Are you flipping out over a 10% stock market dip?

Stock market drops are par for the course for the long term investor.

Taking the appropriate amount of risk, having cash needs on hand, and focusing on your time horizon are the things you can rely on when markets are down.

What to Focus on When the Stock Market Drops – Full Transcript

**Click here for a full downloadable PDF version of this transcript**

Thomas Mullooly: In episode 278, I want to talk about what’s happening in the markets here in January 2022. Stick around.

Thomas Mullooly: Welcome to the Mullooly Asset Show. I’m your host, Tom Mullooly, and this is episode number 278. Thanks for tuning in. So, we’ve had a month to forget in January of 2022. The market hit a new high on the first business day of the year, January 3rd, and it’s pretty much been straight down for the last three weeks plus this month.

Thomas Mullooly: So, the thing that I want to talk about though, is most of the money that we manage is long term in nature. It’s for retirement, it’s for a college education, it’s for the next generation. That’s the type of money that we’re managing.

And money that clients anticipate needing in the next year, two, three; we’ve got that usually set aside in something that’s low volatility, something like a short-term bond fund, because we don’t want that money invested it in the market. We don’t want it in harm’s way because we’re going to need it, and we don’t know, from one year to the next, what kind of returns we’re going to get from the market.

Thomas Mullooly: So, there’s going to be times where we’re going to make two or three, sometimes four years of returns in one single year. And that’s going to be followed by a period where we give back some ground, or we just don’t make any money for a year or two. That’s okay. I mean, that’s part of what we all signed up for with this.

Thomas Mullooly: So, the people who flip out when the market is down 10%, and the market’s down 10% at the time we’re recording this, these folks are usually people who are not properly allocated in what they do. They’re getting a little nervous because things are not going the way they expected them to.

Thomas Mullooly: Look. Markets are going to market. They’re just going to do their thing. When we build plans and we talk about the future with our clients, good years and bad years, they’re all baked in the cake. So, like that spaghetti sauce commercial. It’s all in there. So, we got to let the market do its thing. Yeah, it’s volatile now. That’s completely okay. But if you’ve got questions, if you’ve got concerns, give us a call. Be happy to talk about it.

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