Reviewing Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) & Park Hotels & Resorts (NYSE:PK)

Park Hotels & Resorts (NYSE:PK) and Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, profitability and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Park Hotels & Resorts and Ashford Hospitality Trust, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Park Hotels & Resorts	1	11	2	0	2.07
Ashford Hospitality Trust	1	1	0	0	1.50

Park Hotels & Resorts currently has a consensus price target of $14.08, indicating a potential downside of 11.31%. Given Park Hotels & Resorts’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Park Hotels & Resorts is more favorable than Ashford Hospitality Trust.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

92.7% of Park Hotels & Resorts shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 41.0% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are held by institutional investors. 2.5% of Park Hotels & Resorts shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.1% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Park Hotels & Resorts and Ashford Hospitality Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Park Hotels & Resorts	-6.41%	-5.23%	-2.04%
Ashford Hospitality Trust	-6.12%	N/A	-2.42%

Volatility & Risk

Park Hotels & Resorts has a beta of 1.34, suggesting that its stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Ashford Hospitality Trust has a beta of 1.74, suggesting that its stock price is 74% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Park Hotels & Resorts and Ashford Hospitality Trust”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Park Hotels & Resorts	$2.54 billion	1.26	-$283.00 million	($0.83)	-19.13
Ashford Hospitality Trust	$1.07 billion	0.02	-$179.84 million	($33.09)	-0.10

Ashford Hospitality Trust has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Park Hotels & Resorts. Park Hotels & Resorts is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ashford Hospitality Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Park Hotels & Resorts pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.3%. Ashford Hospitality Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 7.4%. Park Hotels & Resorts pays out -120.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Ashford Hospitality Trust pays out -0.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Park Hotels & Resorts has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years.

Summary

Park Hotels & Resorts beats Ashford Hospitality Trust on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Park Hotels & Resorts

Park Hotels & Resorts, Inc. operates as a real estate investment trust, which owns and operates hotels and resorts. It operates through the Consolidated Hotels and Unconsolidated Hotels segments. Its portfolio of hotels and resorts include the Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, DoubleTree by Hilton, Embassy Suites by Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton by Hilton, and Curio. The company was founded by Conrad Hilton in 1919 and is headquartered in Tysons, VA.

About Ashford Hospitality Trust

Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc., together with its subsidiaries (Ashford Trust), is a real estate investment trust (REIT). While our portfolio currently consists of upscale hotels and upper upscale full-service hotels, our investment strategy is predominantly focused on investing in upper upscale full-service hotels in the United States that have revenue per available room (RevPAR) generally less than twice the U.S. national average, and in all methods including direct real estate, equity, and debt. We currently anticipate future investments will predominantly be in upper upscale hotels. We own our lodging investments and conduct our business through Ashford Hospitality Limited Partnership (Ashford Trust OP), our operating partnership. Ashford OP General Partner LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ashford Trust, serves as the sole general partner of our operating partnership.