WASHINGTON, DC-Weak job numbers. A crisis brewing in Greece andpossibly the rest of the Eurozone. May was not a pretty month forthe markets, and REIT performance duly reflected that.NAREIT reports that the FTSE NAREIT All REIT TotalReturn Index dropped 3.95% in May, in large part due to theeconomic uncertainty.

The broader markets took a hit as well, NAREIT vice president ofresearch and industry information Calvin Schnuretells GlobeSt.com. The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrials, Russell2000 and NASDAQ all dropped between 6% and 7.19% for the month.Year to date, however, REITs are up approximately 6% and retailREITs are up 11%.

“It was a difficult month for everyone,” Schnure says. “Part ofthat was due to the string of economic reports that came in weakerthan I had expected. However, the market is usually good abouthandicapping data like that.” What it is less adept at, he says, isdigesting political uncertainty such as what is going on in Europe.Schnure thinks REITs will weather what storm comes out of Europefairly well, barring a rapid disintegration of the euro--which hetakes pains to say he is not predicting. “Sorry, my crystal balldoesn’t do European politics,” is how he puts it. However, he notesthat in general, US REITs are less exposed to Europe than thebroader market.