REIT Replay: US REIT indexes continue to grow during final week of August

US real estate investment trust indexes continued to tick upwards during the final week of August, outperforming the broader stock market indexes.

The Dow Jones Equity All REIT index closed the recent week up a slight 0.17%, while the MSCI US REIT (RMZ) index also grew 0.96% over the week. For comparison, the S&P 500 fell a slight 0.10%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average also dipped 0.19%.

The office REIT index was the best-performing Dow Jones US real estate property sector index for the past week, up 2.93%. The healthcare and apartment REIT indexes followed next with increases of 1.53% and 1.50%, respectively.

The self-storage REIT index was the sole index among the group to log a decline for the past week, down a slight 0.15%.

The top-four performing REIT stocks for the week with at least $200 million in market capitalization all came from the office sector. Paramount Group Inc. ranked in the top spot, with its share price increasing 5.88%. Highwoods Properties Inc. and BXP Inc. ranked second and third with share-price increases of 5.49% and 4.53%, respectively, followed by Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. with a share-price increase of 4.46%.

Healthcare REIT Medical Properties Trust Inc. rounded out the top-five performing REIT stocks for the week with an increase of 4.41%.

On the other end, the bottom-five performing REIT stocks for the week were populated by communications and timber REIT stocks. Communication REITs SBA Communications Corp. and Crown Castle Inc. ranked at the bottom spots, with share-price declines of 8.09% and 4.48%, respectively. Timber-focused PotlatchDeltic Corp. followed next with a share-price decline of 4.02%.