Remarkable real estate investment trust indexes (REITs) continue to deliver strong performance in a difficult market. In late 2014, we noted that Calpers and S&P Dow Jones Indices were both planning to increase their real estate exposure (see InvestableBenchmarks.com), while commodities crashed.
ETF PM currently has long positions in VNQ and SCHH.
REITs: Most Investors Don’t Own This Top Performer
Michael Chamberlain, CFP, AIF, 12/26/15
Investors realize that the markets’ performance over the past year wasn’t anything to write home about. But there was one “jewel” of an asset class over the past year ending September 30, 2015. Unfortunately, most investor did not own it.
Below are the past year’s returns for some of the major asset classes.
Emerging markets -18.92%
Non-US Developed markets -8.7%
Large US Stocks -0.61%
Small US Stock 1.25%
US Aggregate Bond 2.94%
US Real Estate Investment Trust 11.82%
You read that right; as an asset class, Real Estate Investment Trust or REIT was the top performer. And it’s not just in this past year that REITs did well. Over the past decade, REITs have been in either the top 1 or 2 spots (out of a total of 13 investment types) six times. That’s twice as often as the next best asset class.
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