July 17, 2007
This email may or may not be of interest to you. Since I don't know what you are invested in, I still wanted to get this information out in case it could be applicable to you. Otherwise, just hit the delete key.
Yesterday I mentioned that commercial REITs had become very expensive and could very well follow the residential market downward. We've already seen some of this occurring.
One way to protect or possibly profit from this trend is to look at a relatively new ETF that came out earlier this year. It's called the Ultra Short Real Estate ProShares (AMEX: SRS). It attempts to give us twice the inverse of the performance of the Dow Jones Real Estate Price Index. As the DJREPI lost about 20% of its value, this ETF went up almost 50% from around $60 to $90 per share (right now about $87.50). Since the beginning of 2003, the top 10 holdings of the DJREPI went up about 150% and the dividends yields have been cut in half since then. For things to return to the norm, share prices would have to come down about 25%.
Residential real estate started falling two years ago and commercial real estate could be next. I need to emphasize could fall. No one has a crystal ball.
So you may want to watch this ETF over time and do your due diligence and make sure that it is suitable for you. Just an idea.
Have a good day.
Pete Lipke
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