REIT Share Price and NAV Deviations: Noise or Sentiment?

Abstract

This paper empirically tests the sentiment and “noise” effects in Singapore REITs (S-REIT) over the periods from January 2005 to December 2010.Our empirical results show that trading volume is significantly and negatively correlated with price to net asset value (P/NAV) premiums in the contemporary term. However, lagged trading volume is found to have positive effects on P/NAV premiums, which imply that herd activities of uninformed investors in the last period drive up REIT stock prices. The finding supports the sentiment hypothesis, but rejects the fundamental argument on P/NAV deviations. We find that the sentiment effects are asymmetric. The sentiment effects are not observed in the “hot” markets during the pre-subprime crisis periods. However, the negative relations between trading volume and P/NAV premiums disappear in the post-crisis periods in 2008.