REIT in Brazil: An opportunity of international diversification

ABSTRACT The benefits of international diversification have been modified by the continuous change in the correlations between markets. Real estate investment has a high potential as a diversifying asset in a portfolio. The aim of this paper is to analyze the diversification by investing in REITs and equities for an investor from Brazil. We build optimal portfolios out-of-sample using predictions of volatility, correlations and yields following the DCC and VAR-DCC methods for the BOVA11, Ifix and SPDR S&P500 indices, during the period from December 1, 2014 to October 30, 2015. Our results show that the VAR-DCC approach slightly improves the DCC and Plug-in approaches, and the Naïve strategy.