Market Commentary

Here’s a comment that was much more common when I started this job in 2006 than it is today: exchange-traded equity REITs, people used to say, are essentially “just small-cap value stocks,” implying that they didn’t offer any significant diversification benefit that you couldn’t get simply by holding a mutual fund or ETF focused on the small-cap value segment of the stock market.

Stock exchange-listed Equity REITs have historically provided not merely strong long-term total returns and steady current income, but also several forms of diversification.

Macroeconomic data generally suggest that the U.S. economy remains in an extended period of soft growth and soft inflation—in fact, Federal Reserve officials have signaled their intent to continue monetary stimulus and tolerate slightly higher inflation to protect against further macro weakening. How have REIT investors fared in past periods of strong or weak macroeconomic growth, and high or low price inflation?

 If you’re a day-trader, average returns during long historical periods are irrelevant. For those with long horizons, exchange-traded Equity REITs have proven themselves over and over again.

As an asset class, stock exchange-traded equity real estate has provided higher returns than other public equity investments over most significant historical periods. The outperformance by exchange-traded Equity REITs for long holding periods has not been limited to just a small set of property types.

Both volatilities and correlations have come down and are now firmly within their long-term normal ranges. Estimated REIT volatilities were above 21.9% only from January 21st through February 19th, and was most recently estimated at 11.8% using data through April 15th.

The April release of state unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides additional evidence that, in most of the country, labor markets are healthy and continue to strengthen. An exception to this improving trend is in oil producing states, where unemployment rates have been rising. 

Property values nationwide increased 5.6 percent in March as measured by the FTSE NAREIT PureProperty Index Series.  The strong recovery in March more than made up for a weak January and tepid February, sending property values up by 3.3 percent during the first quarter of 2016. 

The January release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week provides additional evidence that the labor market continues to tighten despite concerns about financial market volatility and weak foreign economic growth.

Commercial mortgages are to the real estate market like rainfall is to a farmer. Too little rain and the crops dry up, but too much and floods can destroy the fields. In commercial real estate, too little credit and business is stifled, but too much debt can lead to speculation, overbuilding and defaults.

REITs delivered solid gains in operating results in 2015:Q4. Funds From Operations (FFO) of All Listed U.S. Equity REITs rose nearly 10% from a year ago, to $12.2 billion, and Net Operating Income (NOI) increased 13.2% over this period. Dividends paid by All Listed U.S. Equity REITs and Mortgage REITs increased 5.1% over 2014:Q4. Total dividends paid for the year as a whole increased to nearly $45 billion.