Investors often view real estate investment trusts as a defensive asset in a sinking stock market, but REITS are struggling in 2022 as investors look for places to hide in a year market rocked by soaring inflation and rising interest rates, according to Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
Their losses this year are largely due to the Federal Reserve’s tightening of monetary policy as it aims to tame high inflation through rate hikes, with the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index down 14.1% this year and NAREIT Index sliding 28.5%, according to the Wells Fargo report. Read: Why 2-year Treasury yields are ‘the base problem’ for the struggling stock market, according to this Morgan Stanley portfolio manager
Shares of the iShares Core U.S. REIT ETF USRT were trading up about 1% Tuesday afternoon, after seeing a loss this year of around 31% on a total return basis through Oct. 10, according to FactSet data. The S&P 500 has this year sunk around 23% over the same period, based on total return data.