Yelp (NYSE:YELP) Insider Sells $24,000.00 in Stock

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) insider Carmen Amara sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $24.00, for a total transaction of $24,000.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 130,724 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,137,376. The trade was a 0.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Carmen Amara also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, June 1st, Carmen Amara sold 500 shares of Yelp stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $22.84, for a total transaction of $11,420.00.
• On Thursday, May 21st, Carmen Amara sold 500 shares of Yelp stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $22.35, for a total transaction of $11,175.00.

Yelp Stock Up 3.5%

YELP traded up $0.81 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $23.77. The company had a trading volume of 1,017,073 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,335,956. The company has a market cap of $1.31 billion, a PE ratio of 10.85, a P/E/G ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 0.47. The business has a 50-day moving average of $25.17 and a 200-day moving average of $26.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 1.74 and a quick ratio of 1.74. Yelp Inc. has a 1-year low of $19.60 and a 1-year high of $37.55.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The local business review company reported $0.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $361.46 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $353.47 million. Yelp had a net margin of 9.47% and a return on equity of 20.19%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.36 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Yelp Inc. will post 1.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently issued reports on YELP. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Yelp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, February 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Yelp from $22.00 to $26.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, May 8th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d+)” rating on shares of Yelp in a report on Monday, May 11th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Yelp from $28.00 to $24.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 15th. Finally, Evercore set a $30.00 target price on shares of Yelp in a report on Monday, May 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus target price of $27.88.

Institutional Trading of Yelp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Optimus Prime Fund Management Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of Yelp by 553.8% during the third quarter. Optimus Prime Fund Management Co. Ltd. now owns 850,000 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $26,520,000 after acquiring an additional 720,000 shares during the last quarter. OP Asset Management Ltd bought a new position in shares of Yelp during the first quarter worth about $14,796,000. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd grew its position in shares of Yelp by 399.0% during the second quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 725,214 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $24,853,000 after acquiring an additional 579,894 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Yelp by 20.5% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,683,927 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $66,402,000 after acquiring an additional 457,261 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its position in shares of Yelp by 1,144.9% during the second quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 351,006 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $12,029,000 after acquiring an additional 322,810 shares during the last quarter. 90.11% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Yelp Company Profile

Yelp is a digital platform that connects consumers with local businesses through user-generated reviews, ratings and multimedia content. The company’s flagship offerings include the Yelp website and mobile applications for iOS and Android, where users can search for and discover restaurants, shops, service providers and other points of interest. In addition to crowd-sourced reviews and photographs, Yelp provides business profile pages featuring hours, contact information, menus and direct messaging capabilities.

Yelp generates revenue primarily through advertising services sold to small and medium-sized enterprises.