Cumberland Advisors

As we cruise into the last two weeks of the year, it is instructive to note the sea change in the municipal-bond market in 2014. The beginning of 2014 saw long tax-free bonds of the highest grade at...

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s gamble to call a snap election was successful, as the voting over the weekend assured that Abe will have another four years to complete his efforts to revive...

Two SectorsAs we approach 2015, two standout sectors remain overweight in our US ETF (exchange-traded fund) portfolios. They are the Utilities and the Transportation sectors. Both sectors are largely...

Many now expect the FOMC to begin to normalize its stance on policy as early as the second quarter of 2015. Newspaper articles such as “Fed Aims to Signal Shift on Low Rates,’( Wall Street...

Global stock markets tumbled Tuesday, due in part to a sharp fall in China’s stocks, the sharpest correction in five years. In a day that saw a 2.4% gain at one point, the Shanghai Composite...

Magic ensued when Mary Martin flew across the stage as Peter Pan. The audience was spellbound, and Broadway theater soared to a new height in wonder. The fog of this memory parts for me to recall her...

Since our October 31 commentary, “Japan Equities as the BOJ Puts on a Full-Court Press,” Japan unexpectedly reported that its economy has fallen into recession, with GDP declining 0.4% in...

The abrupt decline of the oil price has reached levels below the marginal cost of production in most OPEC countries, as well as the US. Over time, low oil prices, if sustained, will slow down the...

The Bond Buyer Visible Supply represents the amount of municipal bonds to be offered by dealers over the next 30 days. This week we have seen a spike of over $18 billion in supply. This spike is in a...

Every so often we get a shock from the oil patch. Sometimes the price spikes (1973-4 saw a quadrupling) and sometimes plummets (a drop from $115 to under $70 in this year of 2014). This downward price...

In his recently published commentary “Covert Affairs,” Bob Eisenbeis, vice chairman and chief monetary economist for Cumberland Advisors, discussed the Bank of England’s tradition of...

On Friday, Nov. 21, for the first time in more than two years, the Chinese central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), cut interest rates, giving a welcome boost to global markets. The PBoC...

In a little-noticed press release in June 2014, the Bank of England announced changes to its policy of providing information on its balance sheet and monetary policy operations. The revisions roll...

We open this commentary with a link to the October 31 policy statement of the Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan. Any serious investor who has not read it is invited to go to this link right...

For a while we said the US was the “least worst” investment alternative in the world. And that used to be hotly disputed. The present global outlook may require the most strenuous doubters...

The results are in and what we see – with some races still being decided – is 52 seats now in the Senate for the Republicans and a 10-seat pickup in the House of Representatives, further...