While total returns of the five largest Singapore-focused REITs only averaged 0.6 percent for the whole of 2018, it’s a lot better than that for property developers and construction players, reported Singapore Business Review, citing SGX data.

In fact, the average total returns of the five biggest developers and five largest construction firms focused on Singapore fell to -18.2 percent and -22.2 percent respectively.

In comparison, all three groups recorded solid average total returns in 2017. The five REITs saw the lowest return of 29.9 percent, followed by 31 percent for developers, while construction players registered the highest figure of 49.3 percent.

“The group of five stocks that saw the biggest swings since the end of 2016 were the construction stocks, followed by the developers and then the REITs. On average, over the past 12 months, the swings of the five REITs were around half the size of the swings of the five construction stocks,” said SGX.

For January, REITs again took the lead with average total returns of 7.3 percent, followed by construction companies (5.2 percent) and developers (4.7 percent).

Among the five biggest Singapore-focused REITs, CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT) posted the highest return of 9.1 percent. It surpassed Suntec REIT (8.4 percent), Mapletree Commercial Trust (7.9 percent), Ascendas REIT (5.8 percent) and CapitaLand Mall Trust (5.3 percent).

For the five largest Singapore-focused construction firms, Lian Beng Group witnessed the best return of 9.6 percent in January year-to-date. This exceeded that of Boustead Projects (8.5 percent), Chip Eng Seng (6.1 percent), KSH Holdings (4.0 percent) and Wee Hur (-2.4 percent).

Meanwhile, UOL Group recorded the top return of 7.8 percent among the five biggest Singapore-focused developers, trumping that of United Industrial Corp (7.3 percent), OUE (5.6 percent), Guocoland (2.8 percent) and Bukit Sembawang Estates (zero percent).

At present, all five REITs are trading above their five-year Price-to-Book (P/B) ratio average, while that for aforementioned developers and construction firms are trading at a discount.

Source: 7 February 2019, CommercialGuru