A Multi-Factor Analysis of AREIT Returns

Since 1990, the Australian Real Estate Investment Trust (AREIT) sector has experienced substantial growth and popularity. While the AREIT sector had benefit from the increased flow of funds from institutional investors during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the recent impact of the 2008 global financial crisis has been a negative one. In this paper, we examine the sensitivities of annualised AREIT returns against a set of seven firm-specific variables and four market-wide risk variables. Balanced and unbalanced panel regressions are conducted on three sub-periods during 1990 - 2008 corresponding to the major phases in evolution of the AREIT sector. Our regression results find that size has a negative impact on returns, and this effect has been diminishing over time. Overall market risk was also found to be significant and positive only since 2003, suggesting that recently AREITs behave more like stocks and less like defensive assets. The relationship with exchange rate risk has been positive in recent years, due to more AREITs choosing to diversify internationally, particularly in the U.S. property markets. Our findings on the relationship between market-to-book ratios and AREIT returns depart from standard finance literature. In comparison to REITs in other countries, AREITs have shifted their preferences away from property-type diversification and into more specialised investment strategies. We also find contrasting evidence on the impact of international diversification, and that domestic AREITs provide better returns than internationally diversified counterparts. The relationship between returns and short term interest rates was found to be positive and significant prior to 2002, and the relationship with long-term interest rates was found to be negative and significant since 2003, suggesting that AREITs exhibit less bond-like characteristics in the past five years.AREITs, AREIT returns, Property-type diversification, International diversification, Panel regressions

Evaluating economic relationships of stapled and traditional Australian REITs

The number of Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (AREITs) trading as stapled securities has grown significantly in the past ten years. Though this type of trust structure improves the income growth to investors, stapled AREITs are riskier relative to traditional AREITs that act primarily as holding companies of property assets. Academic literature on REIT characteristics has found that these assets have become less integrated with bonds and more with stocks. An increasingly mature AREIT market implies that prices of these assets have become more integrated with values of the underlying direct property investments. This study employs quarterly prices over 30 years from 1980 to 2010, and the sample includes 71 AREITs used to construct separate value-weighted indices for stapled and traditional trusts. Using cointegration analysis, this paper aims to examine the relationships of traditional and stapled AREITs with expected and unexpected growth in real estate prices, stocks, bonds, as well as expected and unexpected inflation. Because inflation is driven by changes to real economic activity, and appraisal based direct property indices are prone to a smoothing bias, we also use a set of macroeconomic factors to represent demand for real estate and assess if these have meaningful relationships with traditional and stapled AREITs. These are industrial production and eight employment indices from the construction, entertainment related services, finance and insurance services, public administration and safety, manufacturing, rental and property services, utilities and, wholesale and retail trade sectors. Estimations were conducted with sample periods including and excluding the GFC. Our results show that there is no long-run relationship between AREITs and expected capital growth of retail properties and unexpected capital growth of industrial properties. Stapled AREITs do not exhibit any relationship with unexpected capital growth of office properties. These results only apply when the sample period excludes the GFC. The significance of the error correction term when direct property was assumed as the dependent variable provides support that AREIT prices are significant in explaining expected and unexpected capital growth of direct properties. We also find that in the long-run, AREITs are good hedges against expected inflation, but only stapled AREITs can hedge against unexpected inflation. Estimates of the vector error correction model also indicate that traditional AREITs exhibit short-run adjustments to both stock and bond market factors, whereas stapled AREITs only adjust to stocks. When assessed against a set of macroeconomic variables representing primary demand factors for real estate, we find that traditional AREITs display a significant relationship with industrial production and employment in the construction sector. In the set of secondary demand factors for real estate, we find a persistent long-run relationship for traditional AREITs in periods including and excluding the GFC. Overall, our findings suggest that stapled AREITs do not display a long-run relationship with macroeconomic factors that drive real estate prices, providing further support that stapled AREITs are more like stocks and are poor substitutes for direct property investments

Engaging academically at risk primary school students in an ICT mediated after-school program

This case study documents how a group of 14 academically at risk Primary 5 students (11 year olds) were engaged in academic related tasks in an after school program mediated by a 3-D Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE). Although there was no significant difference in the students\u27 academic performance, they were found to be more engaged in the learning tasks and had acquired a range of information and communication technology (ICT) skills. At the start of the program students attended irregularly, but this improved gradually over the weeks, and other Primary 5 students were attracted to enrol in the program. The planned schedule of the after school program and the 3-D MUVE provided the structures and online learning environment to engage these students. This paper reports on the after school program from the perspectives of the students and teachers, emphasising its context, that is, the school setting. The main finding suggests that the role of ICT has to go beyond the role of a mediating tool. It has to entice these students to be first interested in the virtual learning environment and subsequently in the content embedded within this environment. Thus ICT becomes a means to an end as well as an end by itself, in this process of engaging students. This finding has design implications especially for the use of ICT to engage academically at risk students

Difference in the color stability of direct and indirect resin composites

Indirect resin composites are generally regarded to have better color stability than direct resin composites since they possess higher conversion degree. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed at comparing the changes in color (ΔE) and color coordinates (ΔL, Δa and Δb) of one direct (Estelite Sigma: 16 shades) and 2 indirect resin composites (BelleGlass NG: 16 shades; Sinfony: 26 shades) after thermocycling. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Resins were packed into a mold and light cured; post-curing was performed on indirect resins. Changes in color and color coordinates of 1-mm-thick specimens were determined after 5,000 cycles of thermocycling on a spectrophotometer. RESULTS: ΔE values were in the range of 0.3 to 1.2 units for direct resins, and 0.3 to 1.5 units for indirect resins, which were clinically acceptable (Δ

AREIT returns from 1990-2008: A multi-factor approach

Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (AREITs) have experienced substantial growth and popularity since 1993. Amongst the major themes surrounding this sector during this time, were the increased attention from institutional investors, the trend towards and away from property-type diversification, significant merger and acquisition activities which led to increased trust size, the debate between internally versus externally managed trust structures, increased gearing levels, and the focus towards diversification into international property assets. While the AREIT sector had benefit from the increased flow of funds from institutional investors during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the recent impact of the 2008 global financial crisis has been a negative one, as increased credit margins meant that AREITs found it harder to access capital. Our paper aims to study the sensitivities of annualised AREIT returns from 1990 – 2008 towards a set of seven firm-specific variables and five market-wide risk variables. In particular, we examine the time-varying and cross-sectional differences between the impact of firm size, the degree of leverage, market-to-book ratios, property-type diversification, international diversification, the proportion of institutional investment, and management structure. Our set of market time-varying market risk indicators include, overall Australian market conditions proxied using the S&P/ASX200 Index, yields on 90-day bank Treasury Notes to represent the short-term interest rate, yields on10-year Treasury Bonds to represent the long-term interest rate, and changes to the USD/AUD exchange rate to represent exchange rate risk components. We apply panel regressions for fixed and group effects onto balanced and unbalanced panels, categorised according to three sub-periods to study the major phases of the evolution of the AREIT sector. Our regression results find that the size effect has had a negative impact of returns, but this effect has been diminishing over time. Overall market risk was found to be significant and positive only since 2003, suggesting that more recently, AREITs behave more like stocks and less like defensive assets. Additionally, the relationship with exchange rate risks has been positive in recent years, due to more AREITs choosing to diversify internationally, particularly in the U.S. property markets. Our findings on the relationship between market-to-book ratios and AREIT returns depart from standard finance literature. It appears that the market places a premium on AREITs with higher market-to-book ratios. Compared to REITs in other countries, earlier preference for AREITs diversified across property types have appears to shift towards greater specialisation. We also find contrasting evidence on the impact of international diversification, and that domestic AREITs provided better returns than internationally diversified counterparts. This may be largely due to the fact that the AREITs classified as internationally diversified, primarily held assets in the U.S. rather than from a range of countries. We suggest that perhaps the difficulties in accessing economies of scale in the management of such off-shore properties have precluded these AREITs from holding a more geographically diversified property portfolio. The sensitivities of AREIT returns towards short-term and long-term interest rates also warrant further investigation. Our results are similar to another recent Australian study, but inconsistent with much of the existing literature. The relationship between returns and short term interest rates was found to be positive and significant before 2002, and the relationship with long-term interest rates was found to be negative and significant since 2003, indicating that AREITs exhibit less bond-like characteristics in the past five years

Design of Embedded System for Grid Handtop Computing(ESGHC)

ESGHC applies the grid computing technology which is built under a grid environmentfor handtop devices. By having ESGHC, sharing of handtop devices in terms of computational power and storage are virtually possible

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Korean language journalThe purpose of this study was to examine for the deference of leisure activities attitude compared with Korean and America university students' characteristics of leisure activities attitude in subcategory factors of leisure activities attitude include recognitive attitude, definitive attitude, behavioral attitude. 241 M,H,Y university students in Korea and 143 North Carolina N university students are responded survey for this study from 2007, May to August. The collected data based of survey are analyzed through frequency analysis, t- test, one-way ANOV A analysis by SPSS WIN ver 12.0. The result is following : First, there were statistical difference of leisure activities attitude in behavioral attitude between Korean students and America students. Second, there were statistical difference shows difference grade sector, own major, personal expenses in recognitive attitude. Third, the statistical difference shows grade sector, personal expenses in definitive attitude. Forth, the statistical difference shows grade sector, own major and personal expenses in of behavioral attitude

Dimensional Stability of Lightweight Foamed Concrete Containing Eggshell Powder and Calcium Stearate

In order to reduce eggshell (ES) waste and reduce utilization of pure cement, various researches were conducted to study effects of eggshell powder (ESP) on properties of concrete when it partially replaces ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Dimensional stability is one of the properties that related to cracking issue and soundness of concrete, and it is generally guided by movement of moisture. This study was conducted to study the sorptivity, initial surface absorption, and dimensional stability of lightweight foamed concrete (LFC) that containing eggshell powder and calcium stearate (CS), where, replacement level (RL) of eggshell powder ranged from 0% to 10% at interval of 2.5%, and additional of 1% calcium stearate as cement mass applied for the mixture containing 0% and 5% eggshell powder. The result shows that eggshell powder improves sorptivity, initial surface absorption, and dimensional stability of lightweight foamed concrete and the optimal replacement level is 5%. The result also shows that calcium stearate significantly improves these properties, regardless that incorporation of eggshell powder in the mixture containing calcium stearate might slightly deteriorate these properties. Besides, based on the results, improved sorptivity and initial surface absorption result in increased magnitude of shrinkage as the specimen has lower ability to absorb water for expansion throughout the testing period

Using two-tier bitwise interest oriented QRP data structure for high clustering through interest similarity in SWB P2P systems

The concept of “Small-World” paradigm has been used by many peer-to-peer (P2P) systems to achieve high clustering and low number of hops to arrive to its desired target. This approach intends to improve performance of P2P systems. The Small world concept requires that the architecture of a P2P system to achieve high cluster coefficient and low average hop between any two randomly chosen peers. In this research, we propose an enhanced hierarchical overlay network by incorporating the concept of Small world into the base hierarchical architecture. This research adopts the Query Routing Protocol (QRP) data structure of a hierarchical P2P network by storing the interest information of files in the leaf peers in the network. The QRP in the leaf peers will be aggregated and propagated to the SuperPeer so that interest information could be used to form short-range, medium-range and long-range links with other SuperPeers to achieve low average hop. As peers join and leave the network, a proposed rewiring protocol is used to ensure peers are clustered by interest to form high clustering coefficient so that search activities are yielding higher relevance results in a more predictable fashion. We simulated the porposed small world P2P using test scenarios to evaluate recall rate of the small world P2P system. Our simulated results evaluate and benchmark our proposed Small-World Bee (SWB) overlay network with iCluster [3], Firework Query Model [5] and Limewire [1] to assess performance obtained and goals achieved in the research work so that future research directions could be planned