HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee and MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin—The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index ended February with a 0.8-percent increase to 2,413. In 2011 year-to-date results the index is up 2.1 percent. The Hotel Stock Index ended 2010 at 2,364.
Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) 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 industry’s leading news website, HotelNewsNow.com.
“After briefly going over 2,500 during February, a peak level not reached since the end of 2007, the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index increased slightly for the month, gaining 0.8 percent from the January close,” said Randy Smith, chairman and cofounder of STR. “This is not surprising given the sharp run-up in the stock index over the last 18 months and the recent slowdown in some key industry fundamentals. With continued uncertainty in global markets and growing concern about the cost of fuel for the summer, investors are clearly reevaluating the short-term growth prospects for the industry.”
“The Baird/STR Index underperformed the S&P 500 and the RMZ for the second consecutive month as rising oil prices and macroeconomic concerns outweighed generally positive earnings reports,” said David Loeb, senior analyst at Baird. “Management teams provided their 2011 outlooks that were in line with industry forecasts which may have disappointed investors; however, we believe management teams might have been conservative given the sudden increase in oil prices and macroeconomic uncertainties. Lodging fundamentals remain strong and we continue to believe 2011 will be stronger than 2010.”
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, Hersha Hospitality Trust, Hospitality Properties Trust, Host Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group, LaSalle Hotel Properties, Marriott International, Orient-Express Hotels, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Sunstone Hotel Investors and Wyndham Worldwide.
About Baird
Baird is an employee-owned, international wealth management, capital markets, private equity and asset management firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Established in 1919, Baird has more than 2,600 associates serving the needs of individual, corporate, institutional and municipal clients. Baird oversees and manages client assets of nearly $79 billion. Committed to being a great place to work, Baird ranked number 14 on FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2011 – its eighth consecutive year on the list. Baird’s principal operating subsidiaries are Robert W. Baird & Co. in the United States and Robert W. Baird Group Ltd. in Europe. Baird also has an operating subsidiary in Asia supporting Baird’s private equity operations. For more information, please visit Baird’s Web site at www.rwbaird.com.
About STR
STR (www.str.com) 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. STR also founded the Hotel Data Conference (www.Hoteldataconference.com), which will be held 3-4 August 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Media Contacts:
Jeff Higley
VP, Digital Media & Communications
jeff@str.com
+1 (615) 824-8664 ext. 3318
Rachael Spann Urie
Communications Coordinator
rurie@str.com
+1 (615) 824-8664 ext. 3305
Angela Pittman Taylor
Baird Public Relations
apittmantaylor@rwbaird.com
+1 (414) 765-7250
