TY - JOUR T1 - A Comparison of REIT Investments JF - ETFs and Indexing SP - 89 LP - 95 VL - 2007 IS - 1 AU - Frank Smith Y1 - 2007/09/21 UR - http://guides.pm-research.com/content/2007/1/89.abstract N2 - While REIT ETFs do not underperform their respective index, or similarly traded mutual funds on a daily basis, when the total excess return is considered, they underperform mutual funds by nearly 4% per year. Closed-end ETFs underperform mutual funds by approximately 2.2% per year. Unlike previous research, we find that the performance difference between REIT ETFs and mutual funds is almost entirely due to their yearly distributions. The similarity among firms and dividend yields among their top 10 holdings implies this difference is likely due to capital gains distributions as opposed to dividend underpayment. REIT ETFs are also more volatile, both intra-day and over-night. ER -