We do not invest in direct general-obligation bonds of the State of Illinois. At Cumberland we feel the state is plagued by political gridlock, an inflexible state constitution, a severely underfunded pension plan, and slow growth. In order for the state to avoid dealing with its issues when it…

So far this year, the US equity market has not been affected significantly by the high level of domestic political discord. The volatility we have seen in US equities appears to have been driven largely by concerns about rising interest rates and external factors such as trade war fears. US…

The morning email (today) from my friend Dennis Gartman really struck home with me. Dennis and I have a standing agreement to grant each other permission to quote each other. So here is what I read in Dennis’ morning missive:

We thank readers for comments on our Sunday morning piece about the Fed and the risk of policy mistakes. For those who missed it, the link is here: http://www.cumber.com/fed-employment-mistake-or-correct-munis/. For those who missed my colleague Bob Eisenbeis’s piece on Fed policy, here’s the…

Albert Einstein was, it turns out, apparently not the person who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” (see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/); but it’s a good definition just the same.

The definition certainly…

To no one’s surprise, the FOMC left its target range for the federal funds rate constant at 1.5 to 1.75%. This decision maintains the Committee’s record of no rate hikes at meetings where no SEP forecasts were available and also spaces out its gradual normalization of policy. There is virtually…

Many thanks to readers for comments about our “Thucydides – Part 1.” For those who missed it the link is http://www.cumber.com/thucydides-part-1/.

In this part 2 we must first offer an apology to Professor Graham Allison. An astute reader caught a typo on a third occurrence of his first…

“Let China sleep; when she wakes, she will shake the world.” – Napoleon, 1817 (citation source: Graham Allison)

“We really don’t think it was tariffs – those have been in the public domain for days. Rather, we believe the market has a very unhealthy dynamic at the moment. Washington…

Last week the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank brought together in Washington the world’s finance ministers, central bankers, financial experts and economists, other government officials, and invited representatives from the private sector, academia,…

An isolated Pacific island barely big enough to accommodate an airstrip has gained global importance (see photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marcus_Island_DF-ST-87-08298.JPEG). Some 787 miles east of South Iwo Jima, Marcus Island, or as the Japanese call it, Minami-Tori-shima (also…