Little things happen in a hurricane. Example: When the wind is blowing counterclockwise on the Gulf of Mexico coast, it pushes the waterline away from the shore. Manatees get stranded in the mud (cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-irma-tampa-bay-water-levels-strands-manatees/).

Irma is over in Sarasota and all Cumberland staff are accounted for and unharmed.  Many left town, but a couple are in temporary shelters.  Power went out at our house about 8:00 PM yesterday, but in a split second the generator kicked in and purred like a kitten all night.  We…

Many thanks for all emails and good wishes. Here are some answers to questions received in last two hours.

I'm in Sarasota. We live in zone A and had mandatory evacuation. We are six miles inland staying in a private shuttered home with friends. We have a tornado room, water, food,…

As Hurricane Irma churns through the Caribbean, the United States is faced with something that it has not experienced before: two hurricanes of category 4 or higher hitting the country in the same year (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html).

Cumberland Advisors has activated our emergency response plans as a result of Hurricane IRMA. We expect to have a complete offering of services throughout the effects of the storm. Please be aware that we may be operating with limited staffing and this may slow our normal response times.…

Labor Day weekend at Leen’s Lodge in Grand Lake Stream, Maine, continues a quarter-century tradition, and the best parts of that tradition have been reaffirmed. Sure, we also discussed the world as we see it and debated scenarios. A great outline of issues was summarized in the opening paragraph…

Our thoughts go out to all those displaced or injured, those who had homes and businesses destroyed, and especially those who lost loved ones. Many of us have been glued to the TV, focused on the news surrounding the devastating damage that has occurred and is continuing to occur at the time of…

Bullets on the debt-ceiling charade:

1. No one expects the US to default. So why has the credit default swap (CDS) on the US risen in price? Answer: Bond market agents want to add a little insurance just in case American politics deliver a negative surprise.

2. The short end of the…

For many years, the so-called Phillips curve has provided the inflation forecast framework underlying much of the FOMC’s policy discussions.  Yet both before and especially after the financial crisis, the Fed and FOMC members have consistently under-forecasted inflation.  A new working…

Emerging market equities are continuing to outperform remarkably this year. While a pullback seems overdue, there are a number of reasons to expect the trend to remain upward, perhaps for several years more. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, EEM, is up 28.19% year-to-date August 24. The…