BTIG has some good news about REITs: Heading into guidance season, they are up 0.1%. That's much better than the 27.0% loss during 2022.

BTIG also has some, if not bad, then very cautious news. "Not that this is any time for complacency, though, as we remember well that REITs were flat through 1Q22 before the carnival ride started in earnest," they wrote in a recent report. And that's why investors should eye dividends to "play a more prominent role in REIT returns by providing at least some baseline of return expectations for investors."

In one sense, the turn from -27% to +0.1% is a big change. But, as the firm notes, trying to understand what REITs might do going forward is like, as they put it with some linguistic flair, "a demonic choose-your-own-adventure or a market-based Rorschach test, differing views on any of these key variables could lead investors to very different conclusions."