2019 saw bond yields turn around from their climb in 2018 and move lower. Since the Federal Reserve changed their language last December to being accommodative and data-driven, we have seen yields across the board come down a lot.

The Cumberland Advisors Week in Review is a recap of news, commentary, and opinion from our team.

ESG investing is getting hotter (pun intended). We are watching organizations change their institutional asset allocation to increase their exposure to environmental, social, and/or governance standards that are acceptable to the trustees or boards or donors. Those incoming flows into the ESG…

We may not like the direction of the world, but our task as investment advisors is to set aside personal and political views when we make buy-sell-hold decisions for client portfolios that we manage.

In 4Q 2019 markets continued to react to the buffeting news flow as an array of headlines besieged investors.

The municipal bond market saw interest rates back up very slightly in sympathy with the Treasury market during the fourth quarter of 2019.

As we reflect on a tumultuous fourth quarter for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, early progress in 2019 in the island’s bankruptcy brought optimism, however that optimism has since turned to frustration as headway has slowed, uncertainty has increased, and questions remain unanswered.

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As noted in our Q3 review, the foreign equity markets showed strong resilience in the face of constant headline news throughout 2019.

International equity markets – that is, stock markets outside the US – finished the year robustly, with the iShares MSCI All Country ex US ETF, ACWX, gaining 7% in the 4th quarter on a total return basis. For the year as a whole, ACWX gained 16.5%. While this was less than the US market’s 28.3%…