Identifying & Preventing Scams
Sadly, scams are becoming increasingly common and sophisticated as criminals improve their methods. Often originating from seemingly "trustworthy" sources, these deceptions can come from almost anywhere — including email, phone, social media, and text messages.
Common scams include government official impersonation, unpaid toll fees, tech support fraud, real estate fraud, fake investments, sweepstakes and lottery schemes, and romance scams. While these threats are serious, there are many practical steps you can take to help protect your assets:
- Be suspicious and cautious — if something feels off, it probably is.
- Use unique passwords for each account.
- Enable Two-Factor Authentication wherever available.
- Utilize the "Limited Functionality" option for your Schwab Alliance account.
- Add a "Verbal Password" (OTP) for Schwab Alliance.
- Add a Trusted Contact to your Schwab accounts.
- Never share login credentials with anyone.
- Establish electronic payment methods (ACH MoneyLink®, Direct Deposit, and/or Wires) to avoid check fraud.
- Avoid public Wi-Fi networks when accessing financial accounts.
We encourage you to contact the Tilia Team at (910) 679-4093 or Charles Schwab at (800) 435-4000 immediately upon noticing fraudulent activity or suspicious behavior in your accounts. Schwab guarantees it will cover losses in any of your Schwab accounts due to unauthorized activity, provided you safeguard your account access information and report any unauthorized transactions as quickly as possible.
Playing the Hand That We Are Dealt
As an investor, there are always outside forces to blame if your investments aren't performing as you hoped. This spring has included a whipsaw of tariff actions, continued wars overseas, strain between the U.S. and our most steadfast allies, stubbornly high interest rates and inflation, and a cautious Federal Reserve.
Outside forces are by definition things we cannot control. At the same time, market participants generally become aware of them at roughly the same time, and we have complete control over whether or not we choose to act on that information. Our action or inaction is what matters. What we choose to focus on, and what we choose to ignore for the moment, matters.
The unlimited rewards available in markets are naturally attractive to type-A personalities. Those same personalities tend to lack patience and feel the need to take action when markets become volatile. Far more often than not, markets reward inaction.
While we nearly always preach inaction when markets are turbulent, it doesn't mean we are sitting still. We continue to follow our investment management process, and we'll be conducting our mid-year Core Portfolio review in June and July to determine whether we'll be making any changes to the individual stocks that we own in client accounts.
Stated policy objectives of the current administration are a difficult thing to factor into that process, given the week-to-week — and sometimes day-to-day — changes that are occurring. We do believe it is important to look at general policy trajectories and what companies those trajectories may favor or disadvantage.
One of those trajectories is a focus on increased export activity. The United States Trade Representative Office has the herculean task of trying to formalize new individualized trade agreements with every one of our trading partners. A significant increase in export commitments from foreign governments seems like a pretty safe assumption. The most sought-after U.S. exports that stand to benefit from increased orders include: Crude Oil Products, Liquified Natural Gas, Medical Instruments, Orthopedic Devices, Soybeans, Corn, Gold, Airplanes, Helicopters, Gas Turbines, Cars, Delivery Trucks, Semiconductors, and Packaged Medicines. Evaluating companies in these sectors — including the offsetting impact of tariffs on their own input costs — will be one of the focuses of our investment committee this summer.