The Federal Reserve announced that it will cut interest rates to zero as part of its emergency measure to protect the economy from the impact caused by the COVID-19 virus. I thought that this will give the stock market a boost but it didn’t. The stock market plunged further and this makes REITs certainly a lot cheaper at ridiculous prices I have never seen before.
Below are the stocks that I currently held in my stock portfolio. With the dip in stock prices, the current dividend yield had increased which makes certain REITs very attractive. Do expect further downside and do not expect recovery that soon. For long term dividend investors, this should not be much of an issue.
I will probably wait for the stock market to hold steady at current levels before deploying more tranches of my cash.
| Stock Name | Total Dividends Paid (Cents) (FY19) | Closing Price (18th March 2020) | Current Dividend Yield (%) |
| OUE Commercial REIT | 3.31 | S$0.32 | 10.34% |
| Frasers Commercial Trust | 9.60 | S$1.12 | 8.57% |
| Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust | 7.00 | S$0.82 | 8.54% |
| SPH REIT | 5.60 | S$0.74 | 7.57% |
| ComfortDelgro | 9.79 | S$1.55 | 6.32% |
| CapitaMall Trust | 11.97 | S$1.83 | 6.54% |
| Mapletree Commercial Trust | 9.14 | S$1.77 | 5.16% |
| Parkway Life REIT | 13.19 | S$2.81 | 4.69% |
| ST Engineering | 15 | S$3.30 | 4.55% |
well, you can only enjoy this yield if you enter now.
Hi ZZZ, yes it is a good time to enter down for long term investors as the yield has grown attractive.
Thanks for article 🙂
I see that most of your REIT holdings are commercial/retail.
Any plans to grab those from other sectors (healthcare, industrial)? My very uneducated guess is that retail REITs may be the most dependent on consumer confidence. Can’t really decide if they may bounce back the fastest (as people return to malls and start spending again) or the slowest (industrial/commercials REITs may restart businesses faster than people warming back up to crowds).
Hi Timothy, I already have Parkway Life REIT (healthcare) in my portfolio. For industrial REITs, I am still looking. A few like Mapletree Industrial Trust and Mapletree Logistics have become attractive in terms of current dividend yield. Nobody knows when the market will bounce back so suggest you deploy your cash in tranches.