I have to laugh when I hear a pundit say that individual investors can’t beat the S&P 500 (and you and I both know this is something we hear quite regularly!). Truth is, it’s not that hard. Heck, you really only have to choose an ETF from a different sector, like real estate investment trusts (REITs)! REITs Beat Stocks in the Long Run As you can see, these “landlords”—shown by the performance of the benchmark SPDR Dow Jones REIT ETF (RWR) in purple above—have easily outpaced the S&P 500 for the 20 years following the ETF’s inception back in 2001. That outperformance occurred even with the subprime-mortgage crisis (which was obviously real estate focused) and the pandemic selloff (which hit REITs particularly hard, shuttering malls, warehouses and offices across the world).… Read more