This study investigates the impact of fear on stock returns of the lodging companies for two specific periods (from January 1997 to December 2007 and January 2008 to June 2018). While the literature has adequately studied the relationship for general stock returns, it has underemphasized a sector- based approach, including the lodging industry, toward understanding the connection. The study contributes to the literature by focusing on the short-term dynamic connection for the lodging firms and by providing theoretical propositions that could advance the theory building process. The results show that the fear index has lost its forward-looking capacity on stock performance in the lodging industry after 2018.