Insider Selling: Yelp (NYSE:YELP) Insider Sells $11,070.00 in Stock

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) insider Carmen Amara sold 500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $22.14, for a total value of $11,070.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 100,536 shares in the company, valued at $2,225,867.04. The trade was a 0.49% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed 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 Friday, June 5th, Carmen Amara sold 1,000 shares of Yelp stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.00, for a total value of $24,000.00.

Yelp Price Performance

NYSE:YELP opened at $21.58 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.33, a PEG ratio of 1.99 and a beta of 0.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.75 and a quick ratio of 1.75. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $24.93 and a 200-day simple moving average of $24.47. Yelp Inc. has a 1 year low of $19.60 and a 1 year high of $34.49.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The local business review company reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.21. Yelp had a return on equity of 19.52% and a net margin of 8.59%.The firm had revenue of $375.52 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $366.89 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.67 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Yelp Inc. will post 1.82 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

YELP has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on shares of Yelp from $28.00 to $24.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 15th. Evercore set a $30.00 price target on shares of Yelp in a report on Monday, May 11th. Zacks Research raised shares of Yelp from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d+)” rating on shares of Yelp in a research note on Friday, August 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $27.57.

Institutional Trading of Yelp

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in YELP. Headwater Capital Co Ltd purchased a new position in Yelp in the 4th quarter worth about $4,558,000. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its position in Yelp by 73.8% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 562,739 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $13,922,000 after buying an additional 238,993 shares during the period. Money Concepts Capital Corp bought a new position in Yelp in the 1st quarter worth about $1,684,000. LSV Asset Management grew its stake in Yelp by 11.6% in the 4th quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 2,682,238 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $81,513,000 after acquiring an additional 279,300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased its position in shares of Yelp by 14.0% during the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 358,536 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $8,870,000 after acquiring an additional 44,087 shares during the period. 90.11% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Yelp

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.