Baird/STR

The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index ended November at 2,199.4, a 1.7-percent increase for the month and a 37.2-percent increase for year-to-date 2010. The Index ended 2009 at 1603.

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 industry. The index combines Baird’s financial markets expertise, the data processing of STR and the industry’s leading news website, HotelNewsNow.com.

“Though the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index reported a smaller increase in November, the year-to-date increase remains strong, which shows that investors are still attracted to the hotel industry,” said Randy Smith, CEO at STR. “We are projecting that hotels will show increases in all three key performance metrics during 2011, which should fuel further interest from investors.”

“The modest growth of the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index masks what was a highly volatile month, with an 8.2 percent gap between the high and low for the index during the month,” said David Loeb, managing director of Baird’s hotel research platform. “Investors continued to weigh stock valuations and macroeconomic uncertainties, including concerns over European economic issues, against strengthening hotel fundamentals. The index rose as much as 6.0 percent above the 29 October 2010 close and fell as much as 2.6 percent below the October close, before closing up slightly for the month.”

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 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 2,500 associates serving the needs of individual, corporate, institutional and municipal clients. Baird oversees and manages client assets of nearly $75 billion. Committed to being a great place to work, Baird ranked number 11 on FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2010 – its seventh 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 .

About STR

STR provides premium data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights for the global hospitality industry. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 15 countries with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, an international headquarters in London, and an Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore. STR was acquired in October 2019 by CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces. For more information, please visit str.com and costargroup.com.

Rachael Spann Urie
Communications Coordinator
+1 (615) 824-8664 ext. 3305
STR