Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (HOT)

discretionary travel is still on the tarmac and won't be cleared for takeoff until the confidence in our economy returns.

Favorite REIT (for now)

Vacation travel is up

High price to book! Declining revenue! Poor income! Massive debt! Not a lot of cash! Near 52 week high!

Adequatrely capitalized with long term appreciation expected. Gambling properties will add to earnings.

hotels

Bal Harbour will be a huge disaster.
Luxury demand is flailing at best thanks to AIG effect and economy
Little ability to cut cost.
Business not turning around.

I am a big fan of their product, they manage some quality hotels, but the fact of the matter is that people still don't have money to spend. Period.

As a mainly luxury brand, they are going to have a tough time attracting visitors, and if they do manage to fill the rooms, it will only come with significantly decreased profit margins.

Approx 70% of their business in business travel. This will take a while to come back and may not reach prior levels as T&E gets more monitored. HOT has good product, but it skews to the top of the market whose customers are pulling way back on any discretionary expense.

HOT is the largest owner of high end hotels in the world. it's brands include Sheraton, Westin, and St. Regis. 1st qtr earnings dropped 81% as sales dropped 24%, but that sounds like the norm this quarterly reporting for many companies. HOT, however, faces daunting problems despite drastic cost cutting that saves $100m. A full 20% of sales from company owned properties are in NYC. With recession's end unknown, and Wall St. firms having disappeared forever, much of this decline could be permanent.
The 23.4% decline in RPAR should be a concern at a time when the company is spending $2B on new investments and $1.3B in renovations. Those credit commitments were made before this decline in worldwide business. Unless there is a dramatic turn in financial conditions (seems unlikely), banks won't have the ability to extend or refinance this debt.

Strong management, cost-cutting measures equals upward share prices.

Commercial REIT's in hotel/motel business will get killed.

Hotel industry has been beat down and this company has a great loyalty program.

a good hotel company

Lot of properties in prime location. Has good amount of money and keeps on hiring.

Negative expected long-term growth makes price multiples too high.

Sucker rally to end

This CAPS account is tracking the 200 highest yielding S&P stocks.

Unemployment, inflation, cost cutting by businesses, layoffs, uneasiness in the general public's regarding their financies = cutting out the unnecessary expenses = vacations and business trips.