MFSI Shows Sizable Increase
During April, the MFSI went up by almost 50 points — just shy of 3.5%. With this sizable increase, the MFSI is 7% off its all-time high, and just 6% lower than it was a year ago. Since the end of March 2003, the S&P 500 with dividends rose a whopping 8%, yet it still is more than 13% lower than 12 months ago — a performance that's 7 percentage points worse than the MFSI.

Because the MFSI increased by almost 3.5% while the S&P 500 with dividends went up by more than twice as much, the percentage difference between the two indexes narrowed from 98 percent to 89 percent, a level surpassed for the first time this past July. With a strong showing in back-to-back months, the MFSI continues to dramatically outperform the S&P 500 over the past one, two, three, and four-year time time periods. Since December 1998, the MFSI has risen by nearly 50% while the S&P 500 with dividends has fallen by almost 21%.  During April, the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of the MFSI edged up from 16.75 to 17.24, while the dividend yield — defined as the total cash dividend payments divided by the current stock price — fell from 7.77% to 7.45%  The MFSI is an index of 29 publicly traded US headquartered firms  principally involved in multifamily ownership and management.

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