Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Marriott International, Starwood Hotels, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Wyndham Worldwide and Duke Realty.

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – June 5, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Marriott International (MAR - Analyst Report), Starwood Hotels (HOT - Analyst Report), Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG - Snapshot Report), Wyndham Worldwide (WYN - Snapshot Report) and Duke Realty (DRE - Analyst Report).

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Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Another Rough Week for Hotels

Chicago and New York City led the way lower last week, with ADR declines of 26.5% and 26.4%, respectively. These are major markets, with significant concentrations of hotels aligned with the large, publicly held lodging companies.

RevPAR declines were steep in the middle of the country last week, with Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis posting the largest year-over-year declines, of 37.7%, 32.5%, and 30.5%, respectively. Next on the list was New York City, with a RevPAR decline of 30.2% versus the prior year.

Despite the continuing deterioration in operating fundamentals, hotel stocks have rallied in recent months, including Marriott International (MAR - Analyst Report), Starwood Hotels (HOT - Analyst Report), Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG - Snapshot Report) and Wyndham Worldwide (WYN - Snapshot Report). We believe that these moves have been overdone, and are unwarranted. The sector has a history of false starts, as investors prematurely bid up shares in hopes of a quick recovery in the group. We expect that this will again be the case in this situation, and believe that hotel stocks are due for a correction.

Duke Realty Faces Headwinds

We maintain our Hold rating on Duke Realty (DRE - Analyst Report), the 2nd largest mixed office/industrial REIT in the US. The company, formerly a large developer, will be scaling back new starts to deal with new economic realities. After a 75.2 million share offering, the company slashed its dividend by 32%. The equity sale enabled the company to strengthen the balance sheet and pay off debt, but it dilutes current shareholders.

In what we view as an emergency cash-raising move, the company sold shares at $7.65 per share. This ensures the company's survival, but Duke was trading at over $25.00 per share a year ago. Operations are fading and vacancies continue to increase in most of Duke's markets. In the absence of job growth, the company will have a hard time keeping its properties full, and we expect rents to fall as the company struggles to keep and attract new tenants.

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