Hi All,

Nothing at all against Bruce . . . I /think/ the majority of people over there who prefer "FFO" measures over "discount/premium to NAV" measures are actually agreeing with him, but Valuethinker, for example, who also seems to know the sector well, has said that he actually considers the "discount/premium to NAV" measure the best single one (although note that he first said this back in April 2007 when REIT prices were trading at a premium to NAV . . . anyway, having tried to follow some of the links to accounting statements and such there myself I'm well aware that I don't understand it myself . . . one of my justifications for not learning more about it is that it seems very much like a question over whether a particular P/E measure is a better indicator of value than P/B (i.e., perhaps a question without a right answer even absent all of the particularly confusing tax and dividend payout legislation particular to REITs) but if others feel that's a misunderstanding I'm certainly interested in learning more!

All best,

Pete 

P.S.  Upon rereading I suspect Bob might have thought I was attributing a preference for simple P/E metrics of REIT-valuation to Bruce . . . I can see why it may have sounded that way but I know that wasn't Bruce's intention -- I just mentioned P/E first because P/E is always the first valuation metric that comes to mind for me :  ) 

Maybe Bruce is actually proposing something more akin to a P/D ratio, and whether that's related to the FFO (funds from operations) figures or not I'm not sure, as some seem to be saying that for legal reasons REIT "earnings" aren't as easily distinguished from "dividends" as they would be in the case of a regular stock.