RLJ Lodging Trust downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer analyst Tyler Batory downgraded RLJ Lodging Trust to Perform from Outperform and removed the firm’s previous $15 price target on the shares. The lodging REIT sector “appears to be on a slow road to nowhere” as industry RevPAR trends have underperformed expectations and are unlikely to inflect higher, the analyst tells investors. Given that unfavorable cost of capital also limits capital allocation opportunities the firm argues that it is difficult to see multiple expansion for most of the stocks in its lodging REIT coverage.