(Hendersonville/Tennessee, USA – September 18, 2012) The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index reported a 2.9-percent increase in August to 2,397 and is up 18.4 percent year-to-date 2012. The index ended 2011 at 2,025. Robert W. Baird & Company 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 HotelNewsNow.com.
The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index outperformed both the MSCI REIT (RMZ) (-0.4percent) and the S&P 500 (+2.0 percent) in August 2012.
“The hotel industry recorded favorable performance during August,” said Randy Smith, co-founder and chairman of STR. “With the third quarter coming to a close, investors are starting to look toward 2013. STR is expecting 2012 to finish the year with reasonable increases though 2013 may be a softer year for the hotel industry.”
“Macroeconomic news was light during August, and the risk-on trade worked well—a reversal from the previous three months when hotel stocks significantly underperformed the broader market and other real-estate sectors,” said David Loeb, senior hotel research analyst and managing director at Baird. “August industry-wide (revenue-per-available-room) trends were solid in the 7-percent to 8-percent range, and investors have begun shifting their focus to 2013, given expectations for continued strength into year-end.”
The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was rebalanced on 24 August 2012 to account for the one-time special dividend distributed by Choice Hotels International.
The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was set to equal 1,000 on 1 January 2000, as its starting point. The Index reached its peak of 3,178 on 5 July 2007. The Index’s lowest point occurred on 6 March 2009, when it dropped to 573.