On August 29, the US 10 year US Treasury yield was 1.5%, approximately one basis point (or bp) below the US 2 year Treasury yield. This ‘inverted’ yield curve has predicated each recession by an average of 19 months for the past 50 years. Figure 1 shows the past 20 years of the spread between […]

The information contained herein should be considered to be current only as of the date indicated, and we do not undertake any obligation to update the information contained herein in light of later circumstances or events. This publication may contain forward looking statements and projections that are based on the current beliefs and assumptions of […]

Another month, another retail bankruptcy, another ‘win’ for e-commerce, and a ‘loss’ for brick-and-mortar. Houston-based Charming Charlie’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 11, which will result in 261 store closings across the country. It is the second bankruptcy in as many years for Charming Charlie’s, which the media roundly blames on the impact […]

  Despite a continued economic slowdown and lack of a US-China trade deal, the robust 2019 market rally continued in the second quarter, with the S&P 500 moving +4.3% to close at 2,941. For the first six months of the year, the total return of the index was +18.5%, the best first half since 1997. […]

Equity REITs have become a ‘mirror’ of the US economy, and it’s increasingly difficult to make generalizations about all REITs since fundamental drivers vary among the 15 REIT sectors. But, as yield-oriented companies, they do benefit when interest rates move downward as we have seen recently. As of June 30, 2019, Equity REITs are up […]

What is a REIT? A REIT is a corporation that either owns interests in commercial real estate (Equity REITs) or acts as a lender (Mortgage REITs). All REITs are exempt from Federal income taxes provided they adhere to a number of regulations; most notably, they must payout at least 90% of net income as dividends. […]

On February 15, 2019, shares of XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) fell 14% after the company announced that it was losing some contracts with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).  XPO is a third party logistics provider (or 3PL) that received $900 million in revenue from AMZN in 2018 for delivering packages to its customers.  Because of AMZN’s decision […]

  The market soared in the first three months of 2019, with the S&P 500 making its largest quarterly gain since the third quarter of 2009. A relatively inexpensive and oversold market at the beginning of the year had positioned stocks for a bounce. Fading fears regarding potential Fed missteps, interest rates, and trade wars […]

The information contained herein should be considered to be current only as of the date indicated, and we do not undertake any obligation to update the information contained herein in light of later circumstances or events. This publication may contain forward looking statements and projections that are based on the current beliefs and assumptions of […]

In March, the Chilton REIT team participated in the Citi Global Real Estate Conference in Fort Lauderdale, FL, attended by over 185 CEOs of real estate companies from around the world. Perhaps slightly influenced by the +12.0% year to date total return of the MSCI US REIT Index as of March 1, 2019 (the day […]