Hendersonville, Tenn., and Milwaukee—The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index increased 1.6 percent in September to 4,634. Year to date through the first nine months of 2019, the index was up 13.9 percent.
“Hotel stocks posted modest gains in September, which were driven entirely by a rebound in the Hotel REIT Sub-Index,” said Michael Bellisario, senior hotel research analyst and VP at Baird. “With more stable industry-wide RevPAR growth trends in September, investors became more interested in the Hotel REITs given their discounted valuations. More broadly, interest rates increased and stock market volatility declined during the month, both of which benefitted the Hotel REITs more than the Hotel Brands on both an absolute and relative basis.”
“Any positive with the hotel stock index as a whole is encouraging given recent industry fundamentals,” said Amanda Hite, STR’s president and CEO. “Pricing weakness continues to weigh on operators’ minds, and continued healthy demand growth is not translating into higher occupancies as new supply is also on the climb. Add wider macroeconomic and political uncertainty to the equation, and we’re likely to see dampened enthusiasm around the industry continue.”
September performance of the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was behind both the S&P 500 (+1.7 percent) and the MSCI US REIT Index (+2.3 percent).
The Hotel Brand sub-index fell 0.2 percent from August to 7,238 while the Hotel REIT sub-index jumped 5.6 percent to 1,486.
