Insider Selling: Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) CFO Sells 2,750 Shares of Stock

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) CFO David A. Schwarzbach sold 2,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $43.39, for a total value of $119,322.50. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 216,684 shares in the company, valued at $9,401,918.76. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link.

Yelp Stock Up 1.1 %

Yelp stock traded up $0.48 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $42.98. 357,857 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 651,021. Yelp Inc. has a one year low of $25.30 and a one year high of $47.59. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $42.69 and a 200 day moving average price of $35.76. The company has a market cap of $2.95 billion, a PE ratio of 70.83 and a beta of 1.46.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The local business review company reported $0.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.15 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $337.13 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $325.96 million. Yelp had a net margin of 3.38% and a return on equity of 6.46%. On average, analysts expect that Yelp Inc. will post 1.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Yelp

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Millennium Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Yelp by 12,790.7% in the fourth quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,269,731 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $34,714,000 after buying an additional 1,259,881 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Yelp in the 4th quarter valued at about $19,208,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Yelp by 7.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,257,853 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $281,675,000 after purchasing an additional 596,879 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in shares of Yelp by 71.9% in the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,384,522 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $42,505,000 after purchasing an additional 579,148 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Yelp by 1,440.8% in the 1st quarter. Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. now owns 444,765 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $13,650,000 after purchasing an additional 415,899 shares in the last quarter. 90.11% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

YELP has been the subject of several recent research reports. Credit Suisse Group boosted their target price on shares of Yelp from $43.00 to $53.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Yelp from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 15th. TheStreet upgraded Yelp from a “c+” rating to a “b” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on Yelp from $32.00 to $39.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 25th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Yelp from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $39.00 to $47.00 in a research report on Monday, July 17th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $39.56.

About Yelp

Yelp Inc operates a platform that connects consumers with local businesses in the United States and internationally. The company's platform covers various local business categories, including restaurants, shopping, beauty and fitness, health, and other categories, as well as home, local, auto, professional, pets, events, real estate, and financial services.