What are the differences between a REIT and an MLP?
"A REIT is a real estate investment trust. It is a company that derives most of its gross income from and holds most of its assets in real estate investments, which, in this case, include either real property, mortgages, or both.  They provide a way for investors to get broad exposure in a real estate market without going to buy a bunch of properties themselves.  It also provides diversification within the real estate segment since REITs will often (but not necessarily) have either way more properties than an individual could get or have very large properties (like a few resorts) that would be too expensive for any one investor.  By law, they must pay at least 90% of their taxable income as dividends to investors, so they typically have a good dividend rate (possibly but not necessarily) at the expense of growth of the stock price.  Some of those dividends may be tax advantaged and some will not. An MLP is a master limited partnership.  These trade on the exchange like corporations, but they are not corporations. (Although often used in common language as synonyms, corporation and company are not the same thing.  Corporation is one way to organize a company under the law.)  They are partnerships, and when you buy a share you become a partner in the company.  This is an alternative form of ownership to being a shareholding.  In this case you are a limited partner, which means that you have limited liability as with stock.  The shares may appreciate or not, just like a stock, and you can generally sell them back to the market for a capital gain or loss under the same rules as a stock.  The main difference here from a practical point of view is taxes:  Partnerships (of any type) do no pay tax - Instead their income and costs are passed to the individual partners, who must then include it on their personal returns (Form 1040, Schedule E).  The partnership will send each shareholder a Schedule K-1 form at tax time.  This means you may have ""phantom income"" that is taxable even though cash never flowed through your hands since you'll have to account for the income of the partnership.  Many partnerships mitigate this by making cash distributions during the year so that the partners do actually see the cash, but this is not required.  On the other hand, if it does happen, it's often characterized as a return of capital, which is not taxable in the year that you receive it.  A return of capital reduces your cost basis in the partnership and will eventually result in a larger capital gain when you sell your shares. As with any investment, there are pros and cons to each investment type.  Of the two, the MLP is probably less like a ""regular"" stock since getting the Schedule K-1 may require some extra work at tax time, especially if you've never seen one before.  On the other hand, that may be worth it to you if you can find one that's appreciating in value and still returning capital at a good rate since this could be a ""best of everything"" situation where you defer tax and - when you eventually do pay, you pay at favorable capital gains rates - but still manage to get your cash back in hand before you sell. (In case not clear, my comments about tax are specific to the US.  No idea how this is treated elsewhere.) By real world example, I guess you meant a few tickers in each category?  You can find whole lists online.  I just did a quick search (""list of MLP"" and ""list of REIT""), found a list, and have provided the top few off of the first list that I found.  The lists were alphabetical by company name, so there's no explicit or implicit endorsement of these particular investments. Examples of REIT: Examples of MLP:"
There are some that are already under similar restrictions.  Highly comp-ed employees can only put a small portion of the traditional limit in their qualified plans.  Some may have very high incomes, that if limited to 18K, would be saving inadequately.   Others may have high incomes and not have a 401K.  What do they do? I see only two options: The reduction in the contribution limit would certainly improve the attractiveness of real estate as an investment. When it comes to Real Estate, there are 2 school of thoughts:  1. People who swear that it's the one and best way to make lots of money with RE: flipping, fixer upper, leveraging, whatnot  2. People who don't believe people in #1 above.  I belong to #2 with some addendum(s):  * you can make a lot of money in Real Estate by becoming a RE Broker (but it's not for everyone) even better if you own a RE agency employing brokers (but it's not for everyone); it's like collecting tolls on the highway, no matter what, you collect a fee.  * every portfolio should have a portion allocated to Real Estate, either directly or by means of a REIT. Alas most people who own a home are over-allocated in Real Estate  * in some, and very few, parts of the USA one can make a lot of money by buying and managing directly small apartment complex to rent out; these are remote small urban settings, low prices for both buying and renting, but the ratio of price/rent is favorable.  Run your own numbers and see if it's profitable *enough* ***for you***. I don't really see it that way. Both kinds of companies are trying to maximize return on investment. Both play a vital role in the economy. And private equity companies like Bain that do a little of both blur the line even further. "1) When it says ""an investment or mutual fund"", is a mutual fund not   an investment? If no, what is the definition of an investment? A mutual fund is indeed an investment. The article probably mentions  mutual funds separately from other investments because it is not uncommon for mutual funds to give you the option to automatically reinvest dividends and capital gains.    2) When it says ""In terms of stocks"", why does it only mention   distribution of dividends but not distribution of capital gains? Since distributions are received as cash deposits they can be used to buy more of the stock. Capital gains, on the other hand, occur when an asset increases in value. These gains are realized when the asset is sold. In the case of stocks, reinvestment of capital gains doesn't make much sense since buying more stock after selling it to realize capital gains results in you owning as much stock as you had before you realized the gains. 3) When it says ""In terms of mutual funds"", it says about ""the   reinvestment of distributions and dividends"". Does ""distributions"" not   include distributions of ""dividends""? why does it mention   ""distributions"" parallel to ""dividends""? Used in this setting, dividend and distribution are synonymous, which is highlighted by the way they are used in parallel. 4) Does reinvestment only apply to interest or dividends, but not to   capital gain? Reinvestment only applies to dividends in the case of stocks. Mutual funds must distribute capital gains to shareholders, making these distributions essentially cash dividends, usually as a special end of year distribution. If you've requested automatic reinvestment, the fund will buy more shares with these capital gain distributions as well." @Victor above has provided a very good answer, I shall try and highlight some differences. The differences are specific to a country, however, it does offer some insight regarding the difference between investing in retirement fund vis-a-vis investing in stock directly: In many countries the retirement fund is mandated by the govt. and has to be invested in (in form of direct deduction from salary) ~ Investing in stock is up to the individual In many cases (if not most) capital gain/interest accrual in retirement funds are not taxable ~ Depending upon current laws capital gain (long term/short term) from stocks are taxable Retirement funds are managed and are (in general) more stable in their returns ~ Returns from direct stock investments are dependent on investment decisions of the investor Retirement funds tend to, (though this is very country specific) return somewhat less than market, as an example, in India Public Provident Fund (PPF)/Employee Provident Fund (EPF) return 8.68% tax free ~ As for direct investment on stocks, Nifty has returned approx. 17% CAGR over 15-20 years. Given the above, if you can invest in stock by taking informed calls and you have a good understanding of the financial markets and their underpinning and (probably) looking at long term investment, then investing directly in stock could fetch returns that might not be paralled by retirement funds. If on the other hand, if you feel investing in stock is not for you, then it probably is better to stick with retirement funds and other low risk investments. Either way, you probably have to (and may be you should) carry some portion of your portfolio as retirement funds. Important to take note that Buffett is not directly investing in real estate. He bought a lot of stock in a real estate company that owns a lot of real estate (a REIT). Buffett typically buys stocks in companies that have good fundamentals in industries where he sees potential for growth. So indirectly he is betting on real estate, but holding stock in a REIT is much different than owning properties. "MBS is a fairly general term ""Mortgage Backed Securities"" which simply means that the bond is collateralized with mortgages.  Pass throughs are a type of MBS that is untranched: all bond holders of the deal are receiving the same interest and principal payments, there is no senior or subordinate class of bonds.   Agency passthroughs bond holders receive any principal and interest payments paid by the loans in the pool, minus a slice of the interest payment that pays billing and insurance fees (servicing and guarantee fees, usually a .5% slice of the mortgage interest rate).  On agency product (including Ginnies), if a loan defaults it will be bought out of the pool, with the bondholder receiving all of the expected principal and any interest due on the loan.  Agency deals with different classes of bonds are usually called REMICs.  Passthrough may also be split into  principal-only (PO) and interest-only (IO) pieces.   There is also a huge forward market in soon-to-be-issued passthroughs called the TBA market.  Ginnie Mae has two slightly different programs referred to as Ginnie I and Ginnie II.  Ginnie also has commercial and construction loan financial products.  Freddie and Fannie have the same type of financial products as Ginnie, but there are differences in the sort of loans that Ginnie has vs the other agencies, as well as subtle minor differences between the contract terms of the securities.  Ginnie is also more explicitly guaranteed by the federal government.  You may want to look at:  http://www.ginniemae.gov/index.asp (especially the ""For Investors"" and ""For Issuers"" sections.)  Wikipedia's MBS may be more clear than my description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage-backed_security#Types" "Let me see if I can restate your question: are speculative investments more volatile (subject to greater spikes and drops in pricing) than are more long-term investments which are defined by the predictability of their dividend returns? The short answer is: yes.  However, where it gets complicated is in deciding whether something is a speculative investment. Take your example of housing.  People who buy a house as an investment either choose to rent it out (so receive ""rent"" as ""dividend"") or live in it (foregoing dividends).  Either way, the scale of the investment is large and this is often the only direct investment that people manage themselves.  For this reason houses are bound up in the sentimental value people attach to a home, the difficulty of uprooting and moving elsewhere in search of cheaper housing or better employment, or the sunk cost of debt that can't be recovered by a fire-sale.  Such inertia can lead to sudden sell-offs as critical inflection points are reached (such as hoped-for economic improvements fail to materialise and cash needs become critical). At different levels that is true of just about every investment. Driving price-volatility is the ease of sale and the trade-offs involved.  A share that offers regular and dependable dividends, even if its absolute value falls, is going to be hung on to more frequently than those shares that suffer a similar decline but only offer a capital gain.  For the latter, the race is on to sell before the drop neutralises any remaining capital gain the investor may have experienced. A house with a good tenant or a share with stable dividends will be kept in preference for the quick cash-return of selling an asset that offers no such ongoing returns. This would result, visually, in more eratic curves for ""speculative"" shares while more stable shares are characterised by periods of stability interspersed with moments of mania. But I have to take your query further, since you provide graphical evidence to support your thesis.  Your charts combine varying time-scales, different sample rates and different scales (one of which is even a log scale).  It becomes impossible to draw any sort of meaningful micro-comparison unless they're all presented using exactly the same criteria." If your planning on shorting the stocks be careful, while the value of the retail sector may be declining there will be a lot of back and forth over the next ten years, and as REITs discounts to nav increases, there is huge opportunities for buyouts from developers who have other use ideas for the real estate. The real estate will always have value, even if it's not as a shopping center. I don't like REITs because they are more closely correlated to the movement of the stock market. They don't really do the job of diversifying a portfolio because of that correlation.  When the stock market dropped in 2008, REITs were hammered as well because the housing bubble burst. Bonds went up, and if you rebalanced (sold the bonds to buy more stock) then you came out much further ahead when the stock market recovered. The point of adding bonds for diversification is that they move in the opposite direction of equities; blunting the major drops (and providing buying opportunities). REITs don't fit that bill. REITs are not undergoing a correction like bonds because the price of real estate is a function of housing supply and buyer demand. Rising interest rates only make it a little harder for buyers to buy, so the effect of rising interest rates on real estate prices is muted. The other effects on real estate prices (more wealth in the economy for buyers) pushes in the opposite direction of the rising interest rates. SXL is a Master Limited Partnership so all of the income is pass-through.  Your equity purchase entitles you to a fraction of the 66% of the company that is not owned by Energy Transfer Partners.  You should have been receiving the K-1s from SXL from the time that you bought the shares.   Without knowing your specific situation, you will likely have to amend your returns for at most 6 years (if the omitted amount of gross income exceeds 25% of your gross income originally stated as littleadv has graciously pointed out in the comments) and include Schedule E to report the additional income (you'll also be able to deduct any depreciation, losses etc. that are passed through the entity on that form, so that will offset some of the gains).  As littleadv has recommended, speak with a tax professional (CPA/EA or attorney) before you take any further steps, as everyone's situation is a bit different. This Forbes article has a nice overview of the MLP.  There's a click-through to get to it, but it's not paywalled. I was hesitant to answer this question since I don't own MLP even though I'm aware of how they work.  But hear crickets on this question, so here goes.  I'll try to keep this as non technical as possible. MLPs are partnerships where a shareholder is a partner and liable for the partnership's taxes.  MLPs don't pay corporate tax since the tax burden flows to you, the shareholder. So does that mean like a partnership the partners are liable for the company's actions?  Technically, yes. Has it happened before? No. Of course there are limitations to the liability, but are not definitely shielded in a way normal shareholders are.   MLPs issue a K-1 at the beginning of the year (feb/mar).  The tax calculations are relatively complex and I'm not going to go over that in this post. Generally MLPs are a bad choice for tax-deferred accounts like IRAs since there are tax implications beyond certain limits of distribution (yes even out of an IRA you'll have to pay taxes if above the limit). Not all types of businesses can become MLPs (hey no corporate tax, let's form an MLP!) Only companies engaged in businesses related to real estate, commodities or natural resources can become MLPs.  There are a number of MLPs out there.  The largest is Kinder  Morgan Energy Partners. Hope this helps! For various reasons, real estate prices exhibit far more memory than stock prices.  The primary reason for this is that real estate is much less liquid.  Transaction costs for stock trading are on the order of 10 basis points (0.1%), whereas a real estate transaction will typically have total costs (including title, lawyers, brokers, engineers, etc.) of around 5% of the amount of the transaction.  A stock transaction can be executed in milliseconds, whereas real estate transactions typically take months.  Thus today's behavior is a much better indicator of future price behavior for real estate than for stocks. "Other individuals answered how owning an REIT compares to an individual real estate investment, but did not answer your second question as readily, ""are REITs a good option to generate passive income for awhile?"". The ""awhile"" part is quite important in answering this question. If your intentions are to invest for a relatively short time period (say, 7 years or less), it may be especially advantageous to invest in a REIT. The foremost advantage comes from significantly lower transaction fees (stock/ETF trades are practically/potentially free today) compared to purchasing real estate, which involves inspection+titling fees/taxes/broker fees, which in a round-trip transaction (purchase and sale) would come to ~10%. The secondary advantage to owning a REIT is they are much more liquid than a property. If you wanted to sell your investment at a given point in time, you can easily log into your brokerage and execute your transaction, while liquidating an investment property will take time on market/potentially tossing tenants/fixing up place, etc. On the other hand, illiquid investments have generally yielded higher historical returns according to past research." "In both cases, you have a bunch of assets that pay into a trust, and a set of rules determining how the payments are distributed to bond holders.    Typically, the bonds are split up by ""Seniority"" where any losses from the underlying assets gets recognized by the least senior bond holder first, and the most senior is protected until those below in seniority are wiped out.  In the case of mortgage backed securities, you have a lot of early payoffs (sales and refinances), and those payoffs tend to pay off the senior bonds first (though in practice, quite a bit more complicated than that)  CDOs tend to have bonds as assets that pay into the trust, and CMOs have mortgages.  CDOs used to be more likely to be things like corporate debt, or junk-rated debt.  But during the housing bubble you did have CDOs backed by some form of mortgage backed bonds.  If you build a CDO out of tranches of CMOs, you are going through multiple stages of tranching, and things 'get weird' when you have highly-correlated loss behavior in your underlying assets.  The Equity position or the residual, as it is sometimes called, is whatever money coming from the underlying assets isn't owed to any bond after all of the structuring rules are followed.  This would be interest received in excess to interest owed + money required to make up for lost principal.  Typically goes back to the issuing bank.  There is something called a NIM bond that gets carved out of the residual and pays to the investment bank, I gather.  Residuals and NIMs of mortgage bonds are pretty worthless in a high loss environment like this."