The House bill proposes to keep a 39.6% top rate. Thus there will be no reduction on the demand side for munis for individuals.

The corporate rate is lowered to 20% from 35%. The lower rate may hurt corporation demand for munis, most likely in shorter-term maturities since their yields…

Back in 2013 a mild virus nobody paid much attention to underwent one small mutation: A single amino acid (serine) was replaced by another (asparagine), according to Chinese scientists who recently published their research in the journal Science (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-…

At 8:22 a.m. on Saturday morning, @realDonaldTrump greeted the world with this observation: "Very little reporting about the GREAT GDP numbers announced yesterday (3.0 despite the big hurricane hits). Best consecutive Q's in years!" – Hat tip: Politico.

What follows here is a basic guide for individuals regarding their personal approach to debt management and wealth creation.

We start with a quote by Donald Trump, courtesy of CNN, May 16, 2016: “This is the United States government. First of all, you never have to default because you print the money, I hate to tell you, OK?”

We are privileged to invite readers to a serious debate and discussion. Recently we published two pieces in which we tried to describe markets in terms of metaphors. We thank readers for their many thoughtful responses.

In the second “metaphor” piece we incorporated three charts prepared…

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) achieved a landslide victory in the snap election held Sunday, assuring that his ruling coalition retains its two-thirds majority in Japan’s lower house. It also makes it very likely that Abe will be selected next year to continue…

We thank readers for their gracious comments on our markets and metaphors missive (http://www.cumber.com/market-history-and-metaphors/), examining historical periods that “rhyme” in one way or another with the circumstances we find ourselves in today.

Three levels are apparent in the wonderfully crafted movie Tulip Fever, in which the impeccably cast Judi Dench is both abbess (mother superior) and tulip-speculating vault keeper. The film is a cinematic lesson about trading momentum and human emotions overtaking investment reasoning.

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“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” Mark Twain supposedly once observed. As the Fed begins to shrink its balance sheet even as it determinedly jacks up interest rates, we would be prudent to consider where history has rhymed before and what we might learn from those instances…