Topic: How To Invest

Pat: I am a new Inner Circle member. Can you explain why you designate REITs as manufacturing-sector investments? In other publications, REITs are often considered part of the financial-services sector. Thanks for your advice.

Article Excerpt

One key criteria for deciding if a company falls into the 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. In contrast, 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 car-makers are subject to wide swings in demand, so they go in the Manufacturing sector. Soup demand is far more stable, so soup makers go into the Consumer sector. While the soup company “manufactures” its products, its customers buy them in good or bad economic times. Real-estate investment trusts (REITs) mostly lease office or industrial space to firms that go through swings along with the rise and fall of the economy. So we place…