Robert W. Baird and Co. and STR partnered to create the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index?the first widely available U.S. hotel stock index in the hotel industry. The index combines Baird?s financial markets expertise, the data processing of STR and the up-to-the-minute distribution capabilities of Hotel News Now, the industry?s leading hotel news website.
The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index outperformed the MSCI REIT (RMZ) (+0.2 percent) and the S&P 500 (+6.3 percent) during July.
?Hotel stocks saw a bounce back in July,? said Randy Smith, co-founder and chairman at STR. ?Hotel fundamentals stayed strong through the first half of the year, with hotels reporting the highest monthly room revenue ever in June. We expect to see hotel performance continue to stay steady in the second half of the year, and expect to see revenue per available room growth to be at or near the level experienced in the first half.?
?Hotel stocks rebounded nicely in July as interest rates remained elevated and investors continued their rotation out of yield-focused real estate sectors and into hotel stocks,? said David Loeb, senior hotel research analyst and managing director at Baird. ?Despite mixed earnings results so far, the third-quarter outlook appears favorable, and investors and management teams see continued top- and bottom-line growth as the economy strengthens.?
About the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index
The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was set to equal 1000 on 1 January 2000, as its starting point. The Index reached its peak of 3178 on 5 July 2007. The Index?s lowest point occurred on 6 March 2009, when it dropped to 573.
The Index is available exclusively on www.hotelstockindex.com and www.HotelNewsNow.com. The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index is a co-branded index created by Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) and Smith Travel Research, Inc. (STR). The market-cap weighted Index is comprised of 15 of the largest market capitalization hotel companies publicly traded on a U.S. exchange and attempts to characterize the performance of hotel stocks. The Index is maintained by Baird and is hosted on HotelNewsNow.com. The Index is not actively managed and a direct investment cannot be made in it.
The current companies that comprise the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index: Ashford Hospitality Trust, Choice Hotels International, DiamondRock Hospitality, FelCor Lodging Trust, Hersha Hospitality Trust, Hospitality Properties Trust, Host Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group, LaSalle Hotel Properties, Marriott International, Orient-Express Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Sunstone Hotel Investors and Wyndham Worldwide.
About STR
STR?provides clients?including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry?access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering North America, Mexico and Caribbean. STR provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information. STR founded the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR Global, RRC Associates, STR Analytics, and HotelNewsNow.com. For more information, please visit?www.str.com.
Source Hotel News Resource