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Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index falls 3.5% in July

(Hendersonville/Milwaukee, USA – August 14th, 2012) The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index reported a 3.5-percent decrease in July to 2,329 but is up 15.0 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 industry’s leading hotel news website.

Both the MSCI REIT (RMZ) (+1.8 percent) and the S&P 500 (+1.3 percent) outperformed the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index in July.

“Economic uncertainties continue to make investors apprehensive,” said Randy Smith, co-founder and chairman at STR. “The hotel industry’s performance in July has been muted due to tougher year-over-year comparisons and less weekend days compared to July 2011. We still expect to see increases in performance, though the second half of the year is projected to be softer than the first half.”

“Hotels underperformed for the third consecutive month as broader macroeconomic fears continue to cause investors to seek out investments in relatively safer real-estate sectors,” said David Loeb, senior hotel research analyst and managing director at Baird. “Second-quarter earnings have been strong but conservative guidance, especially for the third quarter given the July 4 holiday occurring midweek, likely spooked some investors given the expected deceleration in (revenue-per-available-room) gains; we believe management teams are being overly conservative.”

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.

The Index is available exclusively on www.hotelstockindex.com and www.HotelNewsNow.com. The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index is a cobranded 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 companies that comprise the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index: Choice Hotels International, DiamondRock Hospitality, Hersha Hospitality Trust, Hospitality Properties Trust, Host Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, LaSalle Hotel Properties, Marriott International, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, RLJ Lodging Trust, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Sunstone Hotel Investors and Wyndham Worldwide.