A Timing Strategy for Investments in U.S. Hospitality Stocks

Abstract

Historical data for the period from January 2, 1973 to May 30, 2008 show that U.S. airline, hotel, restaurant, and travel and leisure sector indices underperformed the market portfolio (S&P 500) in terms of the Sharpe ratio. This result suggests that simply buying and holding hospitality sector stocks is a poor investment strategy. It is necessary for hospitality stock investors to find a method of improving their investments in U.S. hospitality sector stocks. This study offers a timing strategy for investing in U.S. hospitality sector stocks. Directional changes in the Fed discount rate signal when to buy or sell stocks of different hospitality sectors. Accordingly, a timing strategy is formulated and its performance relative to a passive buy-and-hold (market portfolio) strategy is examined with five risk-adjusted performance measures. Empirical evidence derived from the daily trading data over a 35-year period generally supports the superiority of the proposed timing strategy for investments in hotel, restaurant, and travel and leisure sector stocks over the buy-and-hold strategy based on various risk-adjusted performance evaluation methods.