To no one’s surprise, the FOMC held its target rate for the federal funds rate constant at 5.25% to 5.5%. The main story emerged in the post-meeting press conference, where a wide range of issues were discussed. The first question set the stage for the main takeaway from the meeting.

 Summary

I will start this Sunday’s commentary with an excerpt from an exchange I had with a seasoned Washington insider:

The third quarter of the year was certainly eventful. The US government almost shut down twice and the US government bond rating was downgraded by Fitch to below AAA, emphasizing governance issues. Fed members continued to signal higher-for-longer rates, raising fears of a recession. Strikes…

We're re-sending today's email to correct errata. We couldn't let these things slide when we devoted so much of today's space to combating disinformation:

Cumberland Advisors Week in Review + Digest, Oct 16 - Oct 20, 2023

As we approach the FOMC’s November meeting and the blackout period starting October 31 for participants’ public statements on monetary policy, we can expect to hear from a number of policy makers on how they view policy going forward after the release last Wednesday of the minutes of the most…

After many years of Cumberland’s US Equity ETF portfolios being overweight in the healthcare sector, we are now at our lowest relative market weight for a long time. Our only industry-specific position within the sector is IBB, the larger-cap biotech ETF. We also obtain sector exposure with the…

J. Paul Horne is an independent international market economist, retired international economist with Smith Barney/Citigroup, and a Global Interdependence Center board member. He contributed the following essay in response to our Sept.

Back from a visit to Paris, where I lived for some twenty-six years while at the OECD, I’ll share some observations on the current economic and political situation in France.