Even though the Fed is not due to raise interest rates for a few years (2016 per the latest numbers that I’ve seen lately). People are still looking and preparing for this to happen. What asset classes will be affected positively and negatively? In the graph attached, I wanted to show the inverse correlation between preferred stocks and interests rates. with the recent move in rates, the price performance of preferred stocks has been negative. Please look at this long-term graph and see for your self

Freddie Mac has added 23 new Metropolitan Standard Areas (MSAs) to the list of MSAs that they cover in their quarterly surveys of housing prices throughout the United States. The FMHPI provides a measure of typical price inflation for houses within the U.S. Values are calculated monthly but are released at the end of the following quarter. The FMHPI is based on an ever expanding database of loans purchased by either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. With the addition of the 23 new MSAs, the Freddie Mac survey now covers 383 MSAs throughout the United States. The 23 new MSAs are:

• Albany, OR Albany, OR
• Beckley, WV Beckley, WV
• Bloomsburg-Berwick, PA
• California-Lexington Park, MD
• Carbondale-Marion, IL
• Chambersburg-Waynesboro, PA
• East Stroudsburg, PA
• Gettysburg, PA
• Grand Island, NE
• Grants Pass, OR
• Hammond, LA
• Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort, SC
• Homosassa Springs, FL
• Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, HI
• Midland, MI
• New Bern, NC
• Sebring, FL
• Sierra Vista-Douglas, AZ
• Staunton-Waynesboro, VA
• The Villages, FL
• Walla Walla, WA
• Watertown-Fort Drum, NY
• Weirton-Steubenville, WV-OH

In addition to these US real estate indices, GFD also added a number of international indices. The additions include five annual indices for commercial property in Germany, going back to 1995, four quarterly indices of residential property in Austria, seven quarterly indices of residential property in Germany, two quarterly indices of residential property in France and three quarterly indices of residential property in Luxembourg. If you currently do not have access to the Real Estate Database which includes these files, please contact a sales representative to access these and several hundred other data files on real estate from the United States and the rest of the world.

 

The stock for China Logistics Group, Inc. (CHLO on the OTCQB) can lay claim to being the greatest destroy of equity of all time as a result of the multiple reverse splits its stock has suffered and the decline in the value of the stock that followed these splits. The stock for China Logistics Group, Inc. itself has never had a reverse split, but the companies that preceded it had multiple reverse splits which, if added together, created a cumulative one-to-two hundred quadrillion (million billion) split (in numbers, that is 1:200,000,000,000,000,000)! In the OTC markets where penny stocks (a term which gives the company the benefit of the doubt) like this reside, as the stock plunges in price, the company will do a reverse split to raise the price of the stock back to more normal levels. When the company is close to bankruptcy, rather than declaring bankruptcy, the stock gets turned over to new owners who begin the process of equity destruction all over again. China Logistics Group, Inc. was originally known as Vector Aeromotive Corp. back in 1990. Vector Aeromotive Corp. recapitalized as Vector Holding Corp. on August 15, 2000, changed its name to NCI Holdings on June 17, 2003, to Dark Dynamite, Inc. on May 7, 2004, to China International Tourism Holdings Ltd. on October 26, 2007, and to China Logistics Group, Inc. on August 10, 2009. The different companies had little if anything to do with their predecessors. Since 1990, the following reverse splits have occurred: July 9, 1990: 1:50 December 26, 1998: 1:5 July 10, 2000: 1:100 January 18, 2002: 1:25 May 7, 2003: 1:200 November 17, 2004: 1:2000 March 28, 2005 1:1000 November 3, 2005: 1:4 April 3, 2009: 1:200 Multiply this out and you get a cumulative 1:200 quadrillion reverse split. As of June 24, 2013, China Logistics Group, Inc. traded at $0.013, which means that if you had invested $2.6 quadrillion in Vector Aeromotive Corp. back in 1990, your wealth would have shrunk to $0.013. So next time someone encourages you to invest in a penny stock, just remember, there is a reason they have that name.