AvalonBay Inc. is a real estate investment trust that develops, owns, and operates apartment communities. The company focuses on upper-tier apartments. The company was founded in 1978 and reincorporated in 1995, when it began to focus on apartment communities. At the end of 2024, AVB had about 300 communities containing almost 91,000 apartments, concentrated in high-wage regions. The company's portfolio is varied, with luxury high-rise urban buildings and smaller communities in suburban areas. About 41% of their communities are garden apartments. The company has a concentration in New England, New York/New Jersey, and California, but has assets in 20 markets and 12 states. At the end of 2024, the average same-store rent was about $3,040. Total revenues in 2024 peaked $2.9 billion. At the end of 2024, residential revenue accounted for about 98% of revenue with commercial and development revenue accounting for the remainder. Last year, about 40% of same-store properties were located in California and about 18% were in Metro NY/NJ. First-ring suburban assets have performed well, and future expansion is focused on new suburban areas with added ground-floor retail space. AVB shares are a component of the S&P 500 and the company's market cap is about $29 billion.

The stock market continues to march higher, as bullish headlines are coming fast and furious. In just 24 trade days, the S&P 500 (SPX) has tacked on 18%, the Nasdaq has spiked 24.5%, and the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) has surged 24%. Those are the best 24-day returns for the indices since (you guessed it) the pandemic. Before that was when the indices were emerging from the 2008/2009 financial crisis. So if you consider a 20% move a bull market, two of the three listed above met the standard definition. We think a 24-day move is not enough to determine if an index is in a bull or bear market, but we can hold forth about that another day. (And, no, we don't have our own definition.) Maybe just as impressive, the 16-day move since the April 21 closing low has the SPX up 14%, the Nasdaq up 20%, and the QQQ up 19%. For the SPX and the Nasdaq, that's the best 16-day move since COVID-19, and before that, since April 2009. For the QQQ, it is the greatest move since April 2020 and, before that, since October 2002, which was the first rally of the new bull market that ran until 2007. The current rally has been so fast that we are seeing improvement in our weekly charts. Both the 21- and 50-week exponential moving averages (EMAs) have turned higher; the four-week has crossed above the 40-week EMA (after losing it in mid-March); the SPX has overtaken its 20-week or middle Bollinger Band (BB), adding more confidence to the initial buy signal when the index fell below and then recaptured the lower BB; the 14-week relative strength index (RSI) has jumped above 50% after cycling into oversold territory; and the RSI is close to breaking its downtrend going back to its March 2024 peak.

AvalonBay Communities owns a portfolio of 289 apartment communities with over 87,000 units and is developing 17 additional properties with over 6,000 units. The company focuses on owning large, high-quality properties in major metropolitan areas of New England, New York/New Jersey, Washington, D.C., California, and the Pacific Northwest.

AvalonBay Communities owns a portfolio of 289 apartment communities with over 87,000 units and is developing 17 additional properties with over 6,000 units. The company focuses on owning large, high-quality properties in major metropolitan areas of New England, New York/New Jersey, Washington, D.C., California, and the Pacific Northwest.