Cumberland Advisors is a fiduciary advisor for retirement plans such as 401(k)s for businesses, 403(b)s for education and nonprofit groups, and 457 plans in the government sector. As part of our advisory efforts, we meet with plan participants to help them assess their retirement account needs.…

There may be credit challenges in public finance; but for the fifth year in a row, per S&P, upgrades outpaced downgrades.

The majority of Europeans breathed a sigh of relief following last week’s general election in the Netherlands. Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right party won enough seats to form a ruling coalition. While the far-right populist, anti-immigrant and anti-European Union party of Geert Wilders…

The first quarter of 2017 saw records being broken in the equity market, while yields in the fixed-income market have experience continued volatility. The largest movement in yield was on the short end, as we have begun to witness some flattening of the yield curve. As of March 23rd, the 1-year…

The volatility index, VIX, has remained very low since the presidential election. Even the over 1% sell-off did not cause much a spike in VIX yesterday. Not only has the VIX been hovering around 11, the index even had a flash crash to a 9-handle in reacting to the FOMC…

This remarkable US stock market “Trump rally” has steamrolled through the first quarter of 2017. Catching many investors by surprise, it has demonstrated upward momentum nearly day after day and has done so with minimal pullbacks. New highs have been set repeatedly on the popular averages.

To no one’s surprise, the FOMC raised its target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to between .75 and 1%. The rationale for the move was the prospect for further improvement in the labor market and the Committee’s opinion that inflation will settle in at its 2% target, with…

We are a week short of two months into the Donald Trump presidency. The story is told in the two charts below. We can see that Treasury yields have risen since yearend across the board, with short-term yields rising faster than long-term yields. This trend clearly anticipates the Federal Reserve…

Standing where I stood to snap the photograph, a casual observer wouldn't particularly notice the structure or reflect on its history. The tourist's eye is attracted instead to the jungle's green canopy, the swirling waters of the river, or monkeys and a toucan. There are no markings now on this…

The next FOMC meeting is March 14–15. Speculation has now reached a fever pitch that the Committee will indeed decide to raise the policy rate at this meeting. Traders have upped the probability of this happening to 100%. This increase in the probability has been steadily given more and more…