A summary of SLCG’s analysis of investor returns in 81 non-traded REITs. Investors are at least $45.5 billion worse off as a result of investing in the 81 non-traded REITs compared to investing in a diversified portfolio of traded REITs. Investors in non-traded REITs over the past 25 years would have earned as much or more investing in short and intermediate term US Treasury securities without bearing the risks and illiquidity of non-traded REITs. More than half of the non-traded REITs’ $45.5 billion underperformance results from upfront fees charged to investors in the offerings. The rest of the underperformance results from conflicts of interest which permeate the organization structure of non-traded REITs and which are largely absent in traded REITs.

Non-traded REITs are so inferior to traded REITs that no advisor taking due care could develop a reasonable basis for recommending a non-traded REIT. Advisors recommending non-traded REITs either are not exercising due care or are succumbing to the corrupting influence of the extraordinary commissions sponsors pay for recommending non-traded REITs. The brokerage industry is well aware that recommending non-traded REITs is inconsistent with fiduciary duties.

Further on the Returns to Non-traded REITs, updates our 2015 paper including 51 additional nontraded REITs that came into existence after May 1, 2015 and either had had a liquidity event or updated their NAVs between May 1, 2015 and December 31, 2019. We documented that returns to nontraded REITs continue to fall substantially short of the returns to traded REITs. For all 140 nontraded REITs, the shortfall relative to traded REITs was at least $59.2 billion. This systematic underperformance was observed for the additional nontraded REITs launched since May 1, 2015 as well as for the nontraded REITs in existence on May 1, 2015. We also documented nontraded REITs’ returns were lower than traded REIT returns for capital raised by nontraded REITs in every calendar quarter.

Published in The Journal of Index Investing, Summer 2011, Vol. 2, No. 1: pp. 14-24.

Commodities Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have become popular investments since first introduced in 2004. These funds offer investors a simple way to gain exposure to commodities, which are thought of as an asset class suitable for diversification in investment portfolios and as a hedge against economic downturns. However, returns of futures-based commodities ETFs have deviated significantly from the changes in the prices of their underlying commodities. The pervasive underperformance of futures-based commodities ETFs compared to changes in commodity prices calls into question the usefulness of these ETFs for diversification or hedging.

This paper examines the sources of the deviation between futures-based commodities ETF returns and the changes in commodity prices using crude oil ETFs. We show that the deviation in returns is serially correlated and that a significant portion of this deviation can be predicted by the term structure of the oil futures market. We conclude that only investors sophisticated enough to understand and actively monitor commodities futures market conditions should use these ETFs.