Dear Clients and Friends,
Welcome again – we hope that the all-too-quick summer has been good to you!

Markets have become more volatile in recent weeks, driven by headlines about economic activity, inflation, interest rates, elections, and geopolitics.  Sharp selloffs have garnered attention and understandably caused concern, but have been followed by quick rebounds – proving once again that timing the markets is impossible, and that steady, managed diversification is key to long-term investment returns.

Internally, we have been hard at work enhancing our services and capabilities.  Some of the more visible examples, like our new financial planning tools, have been introduced in earlier pieces – and more are on the way!  Most recently however, our focus has been a bit more behind the scenes, particularly in the area of compliance.  This may not be quite as exciting as a shiny new software tool, but it is absolutely critical to the future of StraightLine and to the services we provide.

As you would expect, compliance requirements for firms in our industry continue to increase dramatically – and with good reason.  Regulatory agencies have beefed up their rules and personnel to try and keep pace with an investment landscape that seems to add complexity by the day.  A deep dive into this world has resulted in our decision to enhance our in-house compliance functions with a new compliance and legal partner.  This brings additional expertise and a broad industry perspective to further enhance our compliance function.  As is required with an addition of this kind, we have updated our regulatory documents, including our Client Relationship Summary form, which can be viewed on our website (www.straightline.com/formcrs).  We welcome our new partners to the StraightLine team!

The subjects of compliance and security have been very much front of mind – including last quarter in this very letter.  Unfortunately, we all recently learned about another high-profile data breach at a national background check company that affected millions of personal records and social security numbers.  This is just another reminder that we all must remain vigilant in the protection of our records and assets.  Whether related to this breach or not, we at StraightLine have noticed an uptick of instances of scammers reaching out to people by phone and email claiming to be from firms such as Charles Schwab, TIAA, and others.  They have attempted to trick people into revealing things such as their social security numbers and other personal information.  To be clear, no one from these firms will ever call you and ask for these things.  If you receive a call, email, or text asking for this, do not respond – and feel free to reach out to us anytime with concerns.

Thank you as always for your continued trust in StraightLine and please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.