Hersha Hospitality Shares Popped: What You Need to Know (HT)

Hersha Hospitality Shares Popped: What You Need to Know

By Cindy Johnson | More Articles
August 15, 2011 | Comments (1)

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Hersha Hospitality (NYSE: HT ) popped 12% in intraday trading today after receiving a warm investor welcome to an inline earnings report and reiteration of 2011 guidance.

So what: EPS of $0.04 doubled year over year and met the consensus estimate. Revenue of $90.5 million was 2% stronger than the consensus estimate of $88.4 million and grew 20% year over year.

Now what: With signs the economy and consumer spending could weaken in the back half, reiterating guidance for the year is a positive signal. What's more, although the company hasn’t had a profitable year since 2007, guidance suggests it is on the right track. For 2011, management reiterated guidance of revenue per available room growth of 6%-8%, same-store RevPAR growth of 5%-7%, Hotel EBITDA margin expansion of 100 basis points to 150 basis points, same-store Hotel EBITDA margin expansion of 75 basis points to 125 basis points, and a reduction in the run rate of SG&A expenses to between $9.25 million and $9.75 million versus $10.2 million in 2010.

Interested in more info on Hersha? Add it to your watchlist by clicking here.

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Fool contributor Cindy Johnson does not own shares of any company named above. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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