The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that rising interest rates are generally bad news for dividend-paying stocks. The Globe's guest columnist Gordon Pape writes that as returns on safe government bonds rise, investors tend to shift more money into fixed-income assets, depressing the price of interest-sensitive securities. Mr. Pape notes that some of his recommendations in his Income Investor newsletter have resisted downward pressures and have held up quite well in 2018, albeit for a variety of reasons. One such winner for Mr. Pape is Dream Global REIT ($14.13). Most real estate investment trusts have edged lower this year, but this one, which invests in office buildings in Europe, has been climbing steadily higher. The trust reported strong growth in 2017 with fully diluted funds from operations (FFO) up by 15 cents or 19 per cent to 95 cents a unit from 80 cents a unit in 2016. FFO is the key indicator of the financial performance of a REIT. On the balance sheet side, the trust decreased its level of debt to 46 per cent from 48 per cent the year before. However, there has been no change to the distribution, which continues to be 6.6 cents a month (79.92 cents a year) to yield 5.8 per cent.