Analysis of US REIT Portfolio Performance on Pre and During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study offers an analysis on the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) pool of funds performance pre and during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and used a Safety-first portfolio selection approach in determining the optimal portfolio to invest between behavior levels (fearful-neutral-hopeful). The selection model was applied to past 500 historical trading days and used the same as a return scenario. Testing of data also includes the previous 100 days covering the pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 pandemic and two benchmark markets were used (SPX and XLRE). The result of the study shows that the US REIT investment pool may be a good investment if compared with XLRE as it outperforms the market during COVID-19 if investors remain neutral in their approach. At the end of this study, researchers consider that the findings may help investors start considering US REIT in their investment strategies.