MFSI Strong, But Slipping
During January, the MFSI fell by five points, about one-third-of-one-percent. With this slight decline, the MFSI is at its second-highest value ever recorded and is still more than 25% higher than a year ago. Since the end of October 2003, the S&P 500 with dividends rose by more than 8%, and is now almost 35% higher than 12 months ago — a performance 10 percentage points better than the MFSI. Because the MFSI slightly declined in January while the S&P 500 with dividend increased by almost 2% during the last month, the percentage difference between the two indexes declined from 82% to 78%, a level last seen 19 months ago, in late summer 2002.

Because of the consistently strong showing of the S&P 500 over the past year, the S&P has now managed to outperform the MFSI over the past 12 months. However, the MFSI continues to dramatically outperform the S&P 500 over the past two, three, four and five year time time periods. Since December 1998, the MFSI has risen by 76% while the S&P 500 with dividends has fallen by a full percentage point.

During the past month, the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of the MFSI eased slightly from 18.91 to 18.26, while the dividend yield, defined as the total cash dividend payments divided by the current stock price, fell from 6.27% to 6.25%  The MFSI is an index of 28 publicly traded US headquartered firms, including 23 REITs, principally involved in multifamily ownership and management. [ return to top ]