For the people of Puerto Rico, natural disasters have become all too commonplace. Two years ago there was Hurricane Maria, which claimed thousands of lives and caused billions in damages.

Beginning in 2018, in a long sequence of actions, the US enacted tariffs on goods from a number of countries besides just China. In some cases the affected countries responded with their own retaliatory tariffs on US products.

2019 saw bond yields turn around from their climb in 2018 and move lower. Since the Federal Reserve changed their language last December to being accommodative and data-driven, we have seen yields across the board come down a lot.

The Cumberland Advisors Week in Review is a recap of news, commentary, and opinion from our team.

ESG investing is getting hotter (pun intended). We are watching organizations change their institutional asset allocation to increase their exposure to environmental, social, and/or governance standards that are acceptable to the trustees or boards or donors. Those incoming flows into the ESG…

We may not like the direction of the world, but our task as investment advisors is to set aside personal and political views when we make buy-sell-hold decisions for client portfolios that we manage.

As noted in our Q3 review, the foreign equity markets showed strong resilience in the face of constant headline news throughout 2019.

In 4Q 2019 markets continued to react to the buffeting news flow as an array of headlines besieged investors.

The municipal bond market saw interest rates back up very slightly in sympathy with the Treasury market during the fourth quarter of 2019.

As we reflect on a tumultuous fourth quarter for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, early progress in 2019 in the island’s bankruptcy brought optimism, however that optimism has since turned to frustration as headway has slowed, uncertainty has increased, and questions remain unanswered.

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