In her quarterly missive, Cumberland’s Patty Healy offered a terrific summary of credit conditions in the US muni market. Here’s that commentary:cumber.com/2q-2017-municipal-credit. John Mousseau furthered a dissection of the subject on Asset TV.

We received many replies after we published my commentary “America’s Birthday” (cumber.com/americas-birthday/). A sampling of readers’ responses follows, and then we will turn to the implications of the First Amendment for markets.

The majority agreed with us and offered “well done” or “…

We closely follow the bond insurers because they remain an important part of the municipal market, and they are integral to our Insured Puerto Rico Strategy.

Cumberland exited all uninsured Puerto Rico exposure in 2011, as it was clear that population loss and economic circumstances…

Our International ETF strategy analyzes fiscal and interest-rate policy and complements that research with trading analytics to determine portfolio risk/reward and valuations. The strategy has the benefit of flexibility to assign allocations by market cap size and developed vs. emerging markets…

It’s America’s birthday. Hot dogs and fireworks. Burgers and beer. Gatherings. A lightness is in the air from Key West to Presque Isle, from Pasadena to Juneau. We have good reason (our freedom) for that lifting of spirits.

Let’s celebrate, but let’s also be serious for a moment.

For two years, we have been following the Zika virus outbreak and the failure of the US government to protect its own citizens, let alone demonstrate world leadership. In total, by the time Congress managed to pass a stopgap spending bill for the fight against Zika in September 2016, more than…

As budget season comes to a close, there were 14 states joining Illinois that still had not finalized their budgets by the time of this writing. Illinois, which has received numerous downgrades because it has not had a budget in two years and has amassed a large backlog of receivables, could…

For 30+ years, Cumberland Advisors has worked with nonprofits, helping boards of directors draft RFPs, structure investment policy statements, and design investment portfolios within a separately managed account format – all in compliance with our clients’ unique state regulatory environments.…

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 order to allocate capital to the strongest asset classes while underweighting or eliminating exposure to the…

The Sunday, June 25, New York Times article “After Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis, Worries Shift to Virgin Islands” highlights recent developments concerning the Virgin Islands territory’s lack of market access, drawing a parallel to Puerto Rico and assessing the potential for contagion to other US…