UPDATE: Starwood Hotels Receives Downgrade from Goldman Sach After Hitting Price Target

Goldman Sach's Tuesday rating reports include a downgrade by analyst Steven Kent, lowering the rating of Starwood Hotels and Resorts HOT from Buy to Neutral with a price target of $82. The report notes, "We are downgrading Starwood from Buy to Neutral as the stock has hit our price target. Our original thesis was the shares were undervalued as Starwood was trading at a discount to its peers, and $3 billion of asset sales would create a dynamic capital allocation story where the cash would go back to shareholders." Kent defends the downgrade mentioning that HOT has reached it's price target and valuation and their asset sales and allocation of capital is variable, thus leading to speculation as to why it's been hard to unload assets. HOT closed Monday's session at $80.72 and opened Tuesday down around $80.15.