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Geopolitical tensions reared up last week and eclipsed key fundamental data points. The escalating war of words between the US and North Korea resulted in a textbook flight to safety into bonds, and...
When the Treasury Secretary of the United States has to manage federal finances as the calendar propels the country toward an artificially created fiscal cliff, he typically writes a letter like this...
In June, the European Central Bank published a must-read working paper entitled "Communication of monetary policy in unconventional times" (ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2080.en.pdf). We highly...
As the summer doldrums roll on, we thought it was a good time to recap where the muni market has come since the Trump sell-off of last fall.A number of factors have helped the overall muni market. The...
Bitcoin, ethereum, monero, litecoin, Stratis, and many other strange names now collectively make up an asset class of about $100 billion. Bitcoin is about half of the total.Wild price gyrations have...
"Since the Great Recession, which is now 8 years old, we've been growing at 1.5 to 2 percent in spite of stupidity and political gridlock, because the American business sector is powerful and strong....
Over the past 12 months and as of July 6, the Japanese equity market outperformed. The TOPIX index increased 31.1% and the Nikkei 225 30.5%. These figures compare with increases of 14.8% for the...
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...
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...
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...
As the second quarter of 2017 comes to a close, markets have once again been dominated by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and its decision to raise the short-term interest-rate target another...
“The best bond values today will not be the best bond values next year and will certainly not be the best bond values until maturity.” – Sidney Homer, January 1973, Salomon Brothers...
After the VIX temporarily broke above the 15 handle in mid-April, the US stock market was quickly restored to a low-VIX environment in the second quarter of 2017. In a remarkable display of...
MLPs have had a disappointing quarter and year thus far. As of June 16, 2017, the Alerian Total Return Index is 9.2% lower for the quarter and 5.62% for the year. We believe the yield on the Alerian...
The Q2 stock market continued a concentration we saw in Q1. The stock components of the acronym known as FANG is the dominant reason for the strong market performance. FANG stands for Facebook...
Joseph (as in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) was the first (maybe) successful economist mentioned in the Bible. Why do we say that? Answer: he was data driven.Think of it this way. He interpreted...
The words are powerful as is the concept. “Obstruction of justice” is a term in law. Here is a reference by the Cornell Law School.Here are the operative sentences that are now altering...