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Given Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) recent challenging performance during the COVID shutdown, investors are naturally questioning their allocations to the asset class. However, while it is tempting to draw conclusions surrounding the drawdown and recovery to date, considerable uncertainty remains around the speed at which economies re-open and the shape of a longer-term recovery.

Market participants, especially equity investors, can be forgiven if the words déjà vu spring to mind during this COVID-19 period. Although there are definite similarities between the Australian equity market drawdowns and subsequent recoveries of COVID-19 and the global financial crisis (GFC), COVID-19 has proven to be the GFC in fast-forward.

It has been 21 years since the critically acclaimed science fiction film The Matrix was released in which Neo had to choose between the red pill that reveals an unpleasant truth, and the blue pill which allows him to remain blissfully ignorant to reality. So how does Neo’s experience relate to the Australian equities funds management industry?