 Analyst Patrick Scholes at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey has thrown in the towel Friday on six hotel stocks ahead of earnings, saying he expects the companies to miss expectations that have already been set low, citing indications that the expected recovery will take longer than previously anticipated given the surge in new COVID-19 cases in sunshine states. Three months ago, we had optimistically believed and modeled that business travel would begin to show green shoots in July; however, we are increasingly concerned that such optimism was far too hopeful, especially for business and group-centric hotels, Scholes wrote in a note to clients. We are now nearly in August and have seen scant evidence that such a recovery has begun to take hold, both from out statistically significant big data research, anecdotal conversations with privately held hotel companies and from corporate travel departments. He downgraded Diamondrock Hospitality Co. , Host Hotels Resorts Inc. , Hyatt Hotels Corp. , Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc. : rhp and Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. to sell from hold, and Park Hotels Resorts Inc. to sell from buy. Meanwhile, Scholes upgraded RLJ Lodging Trust to hold from sell, saying the company could be a potential outperformer during a demand recovery. 