Marriott: A symbol of a market that's wrong

I like Marriott. These are great hotels.

I also liked Marriott as an investment. Actually, I was a shareholder, not so long ago, for a short period of time. But I sold my shares to buy something else.

However, things have changed in a world with COVID-19. Day after day, I wonder how the fuck the market has recovered so quickly and why there's suddenly a huge optimism about market recovering. Yes, the market is forward looking. But the market seems to have forgotten than many things have changed and many things won't be the same for many years.

For example, tourism.

And that's where Marriott is, to me, the symbol of a market that's wrong.

As of april 30th 2020, Marriott is selling for 25 times current earnings and 18-19 times forward earnings. Well, these numbers imply that an important growth will happen with the stock, which is impossible. And even if the growth happened, Marriott shouldn't be sold for more than 10-12 times forward earnings in my opinion.

Why?

1- Borders are closed. It's the first indicator that things are fucking abnormal and tourism is one of the worst sector to invest in;
2- Millions of people all around the world have lost their job. These people won't have any travel plans soon;
3- Social distanciation will complicate a lot of things in tourism. Perhaps that hotels won't have that much problems (except for their pools and restaurants), but a fear will remain among many people;
4- Marriott carries a big debt. Even in normal time, the debt looks like an issue. Probably a controlable issue in normal times, but a worrying issue in trouble times;

I took Marriott as an example. But I could have taken many other names as well.

In other words, the valuation of stocks related to tourism is, to me, the indicator to look at, to see if I should buy stocks. Currently, the answer is NO.