REITs outpacing stocks
Equity REITs have outpaced the S&P YTD through February — about +10.5% vs. the index — driven by 6.3% NOI growth, 90%+ occupancy in key sectors and a 22% jump in data‑center returns amid the AI boom, per recent market summaries (x.com) deep dive. Prologis and American Tower are called out as top sector picks in current commentary pick notes (x.com).
Nareit’s Q4 2025 tracker showed all-equity REIT occupancy at 93.4% and same-store net operating income up 3.7% year‑over‑year, signaling broad rent and lease stability across portfolios (reit.com). The sector’s balance sheet metrics remain tight: REIT debt-to-market-assets was 36.0% and the weighted‑average interest rate on total debt sat near 4.1%, with roughly 89.4% of debt at fixed rates and a 6.0‑year average term to maturity (reit.com). Transaction activity picked up in late 2025, with REITs recording about $25.0 billion in gross acquisitions, $18.9 billion in dispositions and roughly $6.2 billion in net acquisitions, while the REIT implied cap rate hovered around 5.9% in the same Nareit dataset (reit.com). Data‑center REITs emerged as the top‑performing sector early in 2026, a gap underpinned by persistent institutional demand and a wave of new construction tied to AI workloads, according to sector reporting and market coverage (therealdeal.com). Prologis remains the largest U.S. equity REIT by market capitalization (about $97.9 billion at end‑2024) and has been spotlighted for both logistics income and selective conversions of space to data‑center uses; management set an April 16, 2026 date to report Q1 results in its recent release (spglobal.com). American Tower has been active on distributions and investor outreach: the company raised its quarterly cash distribution and highlighted its CoreSite data center platform in recent conferences, while several brokers have refreshed coverage pointing to AMT’s global tower and data‑center positioning (simplywall.st). Research notes and industry commentators expect dividend leadership to continue: analysts project roughly mid‑single‑digit dividend increases for the sector’s largest names in 2026, with Prologis and American Tower frequently cited among the biggest expected payers this year (ainvest.com).
