Robert Brokamp

during a shutdown with a little bit of variability, the biggest decline being more than 4% in 1979, and the biggest gain being around 10%, again during the last shutdown, which began in 2018.

The treasury market still operates since it's considered an essential service, so interest will be paid and auctions will continue, which is good because our government pretty much runs on debt.

And speaking of identity theft, for our next item, we turn to a recent article from New York Times columnist Tara Siegel Bernard, who wrote about a reader who logged into his wife's IRA at Vanguard and found that $120,000 worth of investments was missing.

It turns out that scammers opened up an IRA in his wife's name at Merrill Lynch, then requested that the investments be rolled over via the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service, otherwise known as ACATS, which is the system that firms use to move money and investments among one another.

Fortunately, this reader discovered the crime soon enough and the investments were returned in a week.

Unfortunately, this type of ACATS fraud is on the rise.

The truth is, it often doesn't take very much to open a new account online.

It doesn't require a credit check, and freezing your credit won't prevent it.

To request a transfer from another account, the scammer has to know enough information about the person and the account that holds the investments, which can be done, you know, maybe during a security breach or grabbing a statement out of the mailbox or the garbage.

The transferring firm may or may not send a notification that there's been a request for a transfer.

And even if they do, account holders don't always read it, given how much email and snail mail we all get.

So what should you do?

According to Siegel Bernard, "...ask your financial provider what sort of notifications they send if money was transferred out.

Make sure the alerts are turned on and ask the firm if they have a locking feature to prevent this type of activity.

If they don't, demand one."

Also, always use two-factor authentication.

Guard your brokerage account numbers and shred paper statements if you absolutely insist on receiving them that way.

Practice good email hygiene, too.

And if you receive paper mail from a financial institution that you suspect is just a solicitation, open it anyway.

It might be alerting you that an account was opened in your name.