Dallas, Texas 10/18/2013 (Financialstrend) – Host Hotels and Resorts Inc (NYSE:HST) is a real estate investment trust which caters to the hotels and the hospitality industry. Broadly speaking the REIT stock has been shedding their market valuation over the past couple of months in 3Q. A host of these had also cut down their dividend payout plans. The Hotel subsector within the overall REIT offerings has bucked the trend though. Hotel REIT have posted a smart 6.23% rally over the past three months. Host Hotels seems to be finally following the sector trend.
Over the past week, the stock of $13.65 billion market capped Host Hotels has charted an impressive 4.7% increase in its market value. This reverses the losing streak the stock which is tracked by S&P 500 had experienced over the previous quarter. In last 30 days trading the hotel REIT stock had depreciated by 1.28% and by close to 0.5% in the past 90 days. The pressure on the stock was in spite of showing growth in its quarter on quarter sales numbers. In its 2Q results for period ending June 30, the REIT had posted a 7% increase in its sales compared to 1Q. Its earnings per share had also improved by 45% for the same time period. In the trailing 12 months period, it had posted sales of $5.62 billion and generated net income of $138 million. Some of the gains have been passed on by the REIT to its share holders. On September 16, Host Hotels & Resorts Inc. (NYSE:HST) had announced $0.12quarterly dividend payout. What enthused its investors was the 9.1% increase in the payout in comparison to 2Q dividend payouts which had stood at $0.11. The dividend got paid out on October 15 to all share holders on record as of September 30.
At close of trading on October 17, the shares of the stock were trading at $18.64 per share.
