REITs On Top • Stocks Slip • Strong Jobs Data

Please Note: Blog posts are not selected, edited or screened by Seeking Alpha editors.

Summary

U.S. equity markets were lower Thursday on another quiet trading session despite strong initial jobless claims data which provided further evidence that U.S. consumers are unfazed by the COVID reacceleration.
Retreating from yesterday's 70th record closing high of 2021, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% today while the Mid-Cap 400 and the Small-Cap 600 each declined 0.2%.
Real estate equities were again among the leaders today as the Equity REIT Index advanced 0.4% with 16-of-19 property sectors in positive territory while the Mortgage REIT Index declined by 0.3%.
Absent some extreme volatility tomorrow, REITs will end the year as the best-performing major asset class with total returns of roughly 40% amid a robust recovery and historic year of dividend increases.
Casino REIT Gaming & Leisure Properties (GLPI) announced yesterday afternoon that it completed its previously announced transaction to acquire the land and real estate assets of Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland from The Cordish Companies for $1.14 billion.

Income Builder Daily Recap

Last month we launched Hoya Capital Income Builder - the premier income-focused investment research service through Seeking Alpha Marketplace. We focus on real income-producing asset classes that offer the opportunity for diversification, monthly income, capital appreciation, and inflation hedging. If you're not already on board, try a free two-week trial.

U.S. equity markets were lower Thursday on another quiet trading session despite strong initial jobless claims data which provided further evidence that U.S. consumers and businesses are largely unfazed by the COVID reacceleration. Retreating from yesterday's 70th record closing high of 2021, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% today while the Mid-Cap 400 declined 0.3% and the Small-Cap 600 fell 0.5%. Real estate equities were again among the leaders today as the Equity REIT Index advanced 0.4% with 16-of-19 property sectors in positive territory while Mortgage REITs declined by 0.3%.

Absent some extreme volatility tomorrow, REITs will end the year as the best-performing major asset class with total returns of roughly 40% amid a robust recovery and historic year of dividend increases. Despite better-than-expected Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims data this morning, seven of the eleven GICS equity sectors were lower on the day, dragged on the downside by modest declines from the Energy (XLE) and Technology (XLK) sectors. Shares of cruise line operators were under pressure after the U.S. CDC published new recommendations to avoid cruise travel "regardless of vaccination status."

Equity REIT & Homebuilder Daily Recap

Casinos: Gaming & Leisure Properties (GLPI) announced yesterday afternoon that it completed its previously announced transaction to acquire the real estate assets of Live! Casino & Hotel Maryland from The Cordish Companies for $1.14 billion. GLPI also entered into a single asset triple net lease with Cordish, under which Cordish will continue its management of the operations of Live! Maryland. The lease has an initial annual cash rent of $75.0M and an initial term of 39 years with a maximum term of 60 years, as well as a fixed annual lease escalation of 1.75% beginning in the lease's third year. Last week we published Casino REITs: The House Always Wins, which discussed our updated outlook for the casino REIT sector.

Hotels: Yesterday, we published Hotel REITs: Unfazed by Omicron. In a twist of fate, after posting dramatic gains during the vaccine development stages, hotel REITs have been the weakest-performing property sector since vaccines became widely available in late April. Encouragingly, recent TSA travel data has indicated that the Omicron effect is surprisingly muted as the domestic travel recovery has continued this holiday season after a brief pull-back in early December. Hotel occupancy - which is closely correlated with domestic airline travel - has exhibited similar resilience over the past two quarters and managed to climb back above the 20-Year average in early December for the first time since the pandemic began. In the report, we discussed our top picks in the sector and our updated outlook.

Cell Tower: Earlier this week, we published Cell Tower REITs: Living On The Edge. Cell Tower REITs have been one of the primary 'growth engines' of the REIT sector, but are poised to snap their six-year-streak of outperformance versus the broad-based REIT Index this year. The recent slump began around mid-year as several risk factors emerged including potential competition from Low-Earth-Orbit satellite networks and delays in 5G deployment over airline interference concerns. The near- and medium-term outlook for cell tower REITs remains promising, however, but some caution is warranted given their potential longer-term technological risk.

Mortgage REIT Daily Recap

Per the REIT Rankings Tracker available to Income Builder subscribers, residential mREITs finished lower by 1.3% today while commercial mREITs slipped 0.6%. Sachem Capital (SACH) announced this morning that it sold an additional $6.75M of its newly-listed "baby bond" traded under symbol SCCD, bringing the total gross proceeds of the offering to $51.75 million. SCCD is a 6.0% unsecured, unsubordinated notes due 2026. The average residential mREIT pays a dividend yield of 9.54% while the average commercial mREIT pays a dividend yield of 6.11%.

REIT Preferreds & Capital Raising

Per the REIT Preferred Tracker available to Income Builder subscribers, REIT Preferreds were higher by 0.25% today and are now higher by 7.64% on a price return basis and roughly 14% on a total return basis.

Economic Data This Week

We'll publish a full analysis and commentary of this week's developments in the real estate industry, as well as an analysis of the busy week of economic data in our Real Estate Weekly Outlook report published this weekend.

Disclosure: Hoya Capital Real Estate advises two Exchange-Traded Funds listed on the NYSE. In addition to any long positions listed, Hoya Capital is long all components in the Hoya Capital Housing Index and in the Hoya Capital High Dividend Yield Index. Index definitions and a complete list of holdings are available on our website.

We're excited to announce the launch of Hoya Capital Income Builder - the new premier income-focused investing service offered exclusively through Seeking Alpha Marketplace. We've assembled the top contributors and analysts from across Seeking Alpha and beyond including Gen Alpha, ETF Monkey, Retired Investor, Sunday Investor, and Alex Mansour.

Our focus is real income-producing assets that offer the opportunity for monthly income, diversification, and inflation hedging. Members gain complete access to our investment research and our suite of trackers and exclusive portfolios targeting premium dividend yields of up to 10%.

Start Your FREE Two-Week Trial

Analyst's Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of RIET, HOMZ either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.