MAA - Camden Property upgraded Mid-America Apartment cut in recovery shuffle

Equities research firm Baird upgrades Camden Property Trust ([[CPT]] -0.2%) to Outperform and downgrades Mid-America Apartment Communities ([[MAA]] -0.2%) to Neutral in a move to lever "a bit more" to the recovery.Analysts Craig Kennison and Alice Wycklendt cite CPT's recent underperformance and less defensive portfolio, which improves prospects for intermediate-term upside.They point to Essex Property Trust's ([[ESS]] -0.4%) earnings last week that showed sequential revenue growth as a sign of stabilizing/improving demand, helping investors "to look through the near-term coastal market weakness."While both CPT and MAA have outperformed the Baird Apartment Index since year-end 2019, CPT has underperformed MAA by more than 650 basis points, Kennison and Wycklendt write, adding that CPT's "current margin of underperformance is one of the largest since the start of the pandemic."Expect MAA's outperformance to moderate.Continues to have highest conviction for smaller-cap Sunbelt names Independence Realty Trust ([[IRT]] +1.0%) and NexPoint Residential Trust ([[NXRT]] +1.1%) due

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Camden Property upgraded, Mid-America Apartment cut in recovery shuffle