SLG - Office REIT stocks lag broader market gains as office occupancy stays low

While retail REITs perked up in November when it became clear that COVID-19 vaccines would soon become available, office REIT's didn't rise nearly as much.Over the past six months, the S&P 1500 Office REITs index (orange line) rose only 17% vs. 41% for the S&P 1500 Retail REITs index (purple) and the 18% jump in the broader S&P 500 (blue).A look at office occupancy data explains why: Kastle System's Back to Work Barometer shows only 24.2% office occupancy in an average of 10 cities for the week ended March 24 vs. 24.5% in the previous week.For the week ended March 24, the highest occupancy was 38.1% in the Dallas metro area and the lowest was 13.7% in the San Francisco metro area.Source: Kastle Systems.It's not hard to see why. Many companies keep extending the date when they'll return to the office and some realize they may never go back to

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Office REIT stocks lag broader market gains as office occupancy stays low