Hilton's Q2 net income hit $482 million, the development pipeline is at a record 541,300 rooms, and RevPAR grew nearly 4%. But when a company spends almost twice its net income buying back its own shares in a single quarter, the technology question nobody's asking is what's NOT getting funded.
RLJ Lodging Trust's stock is up 58% in a year while most analysts maintain hold ratings and one keeps an "underperform" tag with a price target $1.50 below the current price. The disconnect between market momentum and analyst conviction tells you more about lodging REIT valuation than RLJ itself.
DRH's net income jumped 274% in Q4 and the dividend got a bump. But the full-year EBITDA guidance for 2026 is flat to down, and nobody's talking about what that means for the per-key math.
RLJ Lodging Trust's full-year RevPAR dropped 1.7%, net income cratered 58%, and EBITDA fell 7.5%... but they're calling it a highly productive year. The math is interesting. So is the strategy behind it.
