According to the Wall Street Journal, after a ho-hum 2015 that saw investors crammed by market compartmentalization, the people behind the S&P 500 think they have an idea to put a little surge back into the stock market.
Here is what Liam Pleven reports:
"Starting next summer, MSCI Inc. and S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a unit of McGraw Hill Financial Inc. and purveyor of the S&P 500-stock index, will break out real estate into a distinct sector, rather than continuing to lump them in with a broad group of financial firms such as banks and insurance companies.
Investors and analysts expect the change, slated for Aug. 31, to stir interest among investors who might currently overlook real-estate investment trusts, both in the months leading up to the change and afterward.
“It increases the demand for real-estate securities,” said Gil Menna, a partner at Goodwin Procter LLP who is chairman of the firm’s Real Estate Capital Markets Group. Mr. Menna, who works with some of the nation’s largest REITs, says the change has been widely discussed by executives in the industry."
