Thematic: Property funds link to equity markets

Property fund managers laud their products as great diversifiers due to their lack of correlation to ...

Property fund managers laud their products as great diversifiers due to their lack of correlation to wider market movements. However, the recent fall in equity markets show there is little correlation between products that invest in property shares and those that invest in bricks and mortar, with the former moving in line with the markets while the latter follow the uncorrelated property cycle. While such characteristics make it difficult to compare such disparate products with each other, another issue for property fund managers is the fact that most vehicles are listed within the IMA’s Sp...