Host Hotels & Resorts Inc. (HST), the largest lodging real estate investment trust (REIT) in the U.S., reported disappointing results for the third quarter of 2009, with year-over-year decrease in revenue and earnings per share. Total revenue decreased $227 million or 19.9% during the quarter to $912 million compared to the year-earlier quarter. The company also reported a loss of 9 cents per share compared to earnings of 9 cents per share in the year-ago period. During the quarter, Host Hotels reported FFO (funds from operations) of $66 million or 11 cents per share, compared to $170 million or 31 cents per share in the year-earlier quarter. FFO, a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs, is obtained after adding depreciation and amortization and other non-cash expenses to net income. The decrease in FFO was primarily due to an increase in non-cash interest expenses ...

Like bank stocks one year ago, REITs look cheap on paper…but very expensive on pavement.  Out in the real world of plummeting demand for commercial space and constricting access to credit, commercial real estate is facing a very tough time. And that means the seemingly inexpensive shares of many REITs are not cheap at all.

REITs are still in the early stages of a huge deleveraging cycle that will last for years, which means that the REITs that concentrate on commercial real estate may be a deceptively dangerous asset class.

Our story begins with the massive credit bubble – and related housing bubble – of the last several years. These twin bubbles powered a dramatic rise in consumer spending. Some significant portion of commercial real estate sprouted up to serve and satisfy this artificial demand. From the top to bottom of the U.S. economy, easy access to credit during

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Markets traded down for the majority of the trading period as investors are cautious on the sustainability of the recent market rally of nearly 40% since its March lows.  However, a late afternoon surge bolstered the indices upward to close marginally flat on the day; the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.36, or 0.2%, to 8,764.49 as Cisco Systems and Travelers, Inc officially replaced Citigroup and General Motors.  Both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 were down 7.02 and 0.95, or 0.38% and 0.10%, to close at 1,842.40 and 939.14 respectively.   Commodities fell today as crude lost $0.35 to settle at $68.09 per barrel and gold decreased $10.10 to close at $952.50.  Prices on 10-year bonds fell marginally as well, pushing the yield up 0.0270 to 3.889%.   The biggest gaining sector today was Financials, finishing 1.1% higher as investors increased buying volume ahead of the Fed’s official announcement of which companies

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