After starting off the year in relatively strong form in January, both global and Asia Pacific property stocks were generally positive in February. The upward trend was not as consistent or pronounced as the prior month, however, due in particular to REIT performance, which lagged as investors reversed the January yield trade and focused on growth over yield. For February, Asia Pacific property stocks returned 1.8 percent, which was ahead of global real estate stocks at 1.0 percent (based on SNL Financial data, with quoted returns in local currency). With these decent results, Asia Pacific property companies are already up 4.8 percent for the year, which is approximately 270 basis points in excess of the SNL Global Real Estate Index.

Although the region was generally up during February, Japanese property stocks were the positive outlier, with returns of 7.2 percent. These returns were driven by strong developer performance as investors once again bet