June 18, 2020, is the 47th anniversary of the founding of Cumberland Advisors.
My co-founding partner, the late Sheldon “Shep” Goldberg, and I had completed the filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission by mail. We complied with all appropriate rules. We used a special law firm whose expertise was needed in those days. And we were in the waiting period when the letter arrived and the official start date of Cumberland became known.
1973. This was before the Arab-Israeli War. Before the first oil price spike, which took oil from $3 per barrel to $12. Before the subsequent inflation of the 1970s. Before Fed Chairman Arthur Burns ended up raising interest rates to what were then the highest rates since the Civil War.
Little did we know that oil would eventually hit $30 per barrel at the end of the decade. We didn’t know that after Burns would come William Miller briefly and then Paul Volcker, who would take interest rates to new all-time highs. We didn’t know that inflation in the United States would reach double digits.
One and a half years after we became official, the monster bear stock market in the United States had lost over 40% from peak to trough. The closing low in 1974 for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 577.60. That’s right, the Dow was under 600 in 1974. The S&P 500 Index low was 65. No typo here!
The country was in full recession. Unemployment was high and still rising. We had the shock of gas lines for cars and no fuel for planes. We had the Watergate shock and Nixon’s resignation. We had the dollar devaluation and the demise of the Bretton Woods regime.
We survived.
Now we’re 47 years old. We’re 45 people. We are in almost all of the 50 states and have clients in several foreign countries. We have 18 Series 65-licensed professionals. The full story is on our website. We are still an independent, fee-for-service investment advisor.
Read all about us at www.cumber.com
David R. Kotok
Chairman of the Board & Chief Investment Officer
Email | Bio
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