investment trusts

ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $15.52 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index. The weight of each REIT is limited to 25% of the ETF’s value.zxc iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets....

These two retailers recently set up their land and buildings as real estate investment trusts (REITs). That’s helping them fund acquisitions to better compete with U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, which are expanding in Canada.

LOBLAW COMPANIES LTD....

ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $15.46 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index. The weight of each REIT is limited to 25% of the ETF’s value.

iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets. The fund yields 5.0%.

The ETF’s largest holding is RioCan REIT at 19.5%, followed by H&R REIT (14.9%), Dundee REIT (8.0%), Canadian REIT (7.4%), Calloway REIT (6.7%), Allied Prop. REIT (5.9%), Boardwalk REIT (5.8%), Canadian Apt, REIT (5.7%), Cominar REIT (5.6%), Artis REIT (4.7%), Chartwell REIT (4.6%), Granite REIT (4.4%), Dundee Intl. REIT (2.3%), Northern Property REIT (2.3%) and Crombie REIT (1.8%).
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Many investors look at real estate investment trusts (REITs) as proxies for bonds. Instead, we view REITs as companies that own and manage real estate.

When you invest in a REIT, the most important thing to look at is the quality of its holdings. This includes locations, tenants and expansion opportunities....

ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $15.46 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index. The weight of each REIT is limited to 25% of the ETF’s value.

iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets....

Our main criteria for deciding if a company falls into the Consumer or Manufacturing sector is whether it behaves in a cyclical or non-cyclical manner. A manufacturing company is subject to the ups and downs of the economic cycle; consumer firms benefit from continuous and often habitual use of their products and services, so they have much more stability in their sales and earnings, regardless of the state of the economy. It doesn’t matter who the company sells to. For instance, consumers buy cars and soup. But carmakers are subject to wide swings in demand, so they go in the Manufacturing sector. Soup demand is far more stable, so soup makers go in the Consumer sector. While the soup company “manufactures” its products, its customers buy them during good economic times or bad. Real estate investment trusts (REITs) lease mostly office space or industrial space to firms that go through swings along with the rise and fall of the economy, so we place them in the Manufacturing sector....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on specific investments as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle....

ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $15.05 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index. The weight of each REIT is limited to 25% of the ETF’s value.

iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets. The fund yields 5.2%.

The ETF’s largest holding is RioCan REIT at 19.4%, followed by H&R REIT (14.5%), Dundee REIT (8.3%), Canadian REIT (7.4%), Calloway REIT (6.7%), Cominar REIT (6.1%), Boardwalk REIT (5.9%), Canadian Apartment REIT (5.7%), Allied Properties REIT (5.5%), Artis REIT (4.8%), Chartwell REIT (4.4%), Granite REIT (4.3%), Dundee International REIT (2.3%), Northern Property REIT (2.3%) and Crombie REIT (1.9%).
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ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $15.05 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index. The weight of each REIT is limited to 25% of the ETF’s value.

iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets....

H&R REIT (Toronto symbol HR.UN; www.hr-reit.com) owns stakes in 41 office buildings, 112 industrial properties and 163 shopping malls in Canada, principally in the Greater Toronto Area. In the past two years it also added two major purchases in the U.S: Two Gotham Center in New York and the Hess Tower in Houston. The trust has a 99.0% occupancy rate....