Market Analysis & Research

January was the strongest monthly performance for REITs since October 2011.

Commercial real estate markets maintained momentum through the end of 2018, as net absorption continued at a high level across major property types.

In terms of information about the economy, the retail sales report for December and business inventories report for November were early casualties, as these releases planned for Jan 16^th were delayed due to the Census Bureau being shuttered by the lack of funding.

REITs have generally protected against stock market declines, with downside beta typically well below one; moreover, their upside beta has usually been higher, giving investors a chance to “have it both ways.”

Member REITs can submit their IRS Form 1099-DIV data to Nareit for posting on the Nareit website.

December 2018 was bitter for investors. Total returns in the broad REIT market were -7.73 percent—but that was good news compared with large-cap stocks (-9.03 percent according to the S&P 500), small-cap stocks (-11.88 percent for the Russell 2000) and especially small-cap value stocks (-12.09 percent).

REIT industry experts will share insights on the year ahead in a Jan. 17 Bloomberg webinar.

The government appears to be settling in for an extended partial shutdown, at least as of January 2. If the shutdown persists beyond the next few days, however, the closure of several key agencies that produce statistics on the U.S. economy could begin to have an impact on financial markets, including REITs.

REIT leverage ratios declined on both a book-value and market-value basis in the third quarter, as prudent balance sheet management reduced the sector’s exposure to interest rates.

Two of the oldest rules on Wall Street are “Buy low, sell high,” and “Don’t fight the Fed.” While it can be difficult if not impossible to pick the highs and lows in the stock market, it is not that hard to read the Fed’s signals about future policy.

Funds from operations of all listed equity REITs was 11.1 percent higher than one year earlier, according to the Nareit T-Tracker®.

Economic momentum continued into the third quarter causing commercial real estate markets to tighten.