The Liquidity Crisis, Investor Sentiment, and REIT Returns and Volatility

Huerta, Daniel and Egly, Peter V. and Escobari, Diego (2015): The Liquidity Crisis, Investor Sentiment, and REIT Returns and Volatility. Forthcoming in: Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management

Abstract

The real estate investment trust (REIT) industry experienced a liquidity crisis resulting from reduced access to credit commitments as banks were restoring their balance sheets during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Employing generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models we examine the impact of the liquidity crisis and investor sentiment on REIT returns and volatility over the sample period from December 2001 to February 2013. We find that the liquidity crisis negatively impacts REIT returns and helps explain increases in volatility; this finding is robust to multiple specifications. We show that investor sentiment is a significant factor in explaining the REIT return generating process with institutional sentiment playing a dominating role over individual sentiment; furthermore, institutional sentiment was the only relevant sentiment variable during liquidity crisis.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Investor Sentiment, Liquidity Crisis, REIT returns, REIT volatility, GARCH-M
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C2 - Single Equation Models ; Single Variables > C22 - Time-Series Models ; Dynamic Quantile Regressions ; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models ; Diffusion Processes; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G11 - Portfolio Choice ; Investment Decisions; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G14 - Information and Market Efficiency ; Event Studies ; Insider Trading; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G23 - Non-bank Financial Institutions ; Financial Instruments ; Institutional Investors

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