On Wednesday, the Fed released the minutes of the FOMC’s December meeting.  As usual, the minutes followed the standard format, mirroring the way presentations and discussions proceed at FOMC meetings.  It began with a brief summary report by the manager of the Open Market Desk in New…

The fourth quarter was dominated by tax reform and its effects on the supply and pricing of municipal bonds. The prospect that one of President Trump’s major initiatives would finally be passed by year-end buoyed the stock market http://www.cumber.com/market-volatility-etf-portfolio-4q-2017-…

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico entered the fourth quarter having suffered one of the most devastating natural disasters in the island’s history. Hurricane Maria left billions of dollars in damage in its wake, including both infrastructure damage and economic losses. The human costs have been…

Recognizing strengths and weaknesses among primary asset classes is the core goal of our Tactical Trend strategy. The strategy seeks to identify relative strength and trend strength in an attempt to allocate capital to the strongest asset classes while underweighting or eliminating exposure to…

Happy New Year Wishes.

The final Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring of the tax bill was submitted to the House Ways and Means Committee on December 15. A summary of the scoring is available here in PDF form: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/costestimate/…

The fourth quarter of 2017 continued to produce records in the equity market, while the yield curve in the fixed-income market continued a flattening trend. The largest movement in yield was on the short end, as short-term rates continue to rise. As of December 20th, the 1-year and 2-year…

The strong advance in international (global ex-US) equity markets this year slowed down in the final quarter as advanced-economy markets consolidated their substantial gains and some emerging markets gave back part of their earlier advances. Latin American markets were hit by weakness in…

Many readers (copied below) responded to our commentary that described the attempt of Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa) to “carve out” a special provision in the tax bill for Hillsdale College in Michigan.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average approaching 25,000, the S&P 500 touching 2,700, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite topping 7,000, our quantitative strategy has once again harvested considerable quarterly gains.

The US stock market is likely to have its second-best year since…

Natural disasters appear to be on track for a record year. Numerous wildfires in the West and back-to-back hurricanes in the Southeast raise questions about how the affected areas will fare in terms of people and businesses remaining in the area, the continuance of federal aid, and the…