The editors of the Bear Stearns REIT Monitor, published weekly, attribute the recent run-up of the RMS to efforts by institutional investors to rebalance their portfolios by the end of the quarter.

For the week ending Mar. 26, $26.5 million was withdrawn from mutual funds dedicated to real estate investments, with total assets declining to $10.3 billion. The 30-day average trading volume moved down 6.6% below that of the previous week, from 16.5 million shares to 15.5 million shares. At week's end, the dividend yield of the RMS came in at 7.24%, nine basis points below where it ended the preceding week. During the same period, the spread over the S&P 500 was 588 basis points compared to 595 bps the previous week while the spread over the 10-year Treasury lost 20 bps, ending at 233.