Insider Selling: Yelp (NYSE:YELP) CEO Sells 30,000 Shares of Stock

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) CEO Jeremy Stoppelman sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.48, for a total value of $854,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 756,458 shares in the company, valued at $21,543,923.84. This trade represents a 3.81% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink.

Jeremy Stoppelman also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, January 20th, Jeremy Stoppelman sold 30,000 shares of Yelp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.07, for a total value of $842,100.00.

Yelp Price Performance

Shares of NYSE YELP traded down $0.08 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $28.05. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,139,734 shares, compared to its average volume of 937,919. The stock has a market cap of $1.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.52 and a beta of 0.55. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $29.73 and its 200-day simple moving average is $31.55. Yelp Inc. has a one year low of $27.29 and a one year high of $41.72.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 6th. The local business review company reported $0.61 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $376.04 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $368.39 million. Yelp had a net margin of 10.23% and a return on equity of 20.33%. The firm’s revenue was up 4.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.56 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Yelp Inc. will post 2.22 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

YELP has been the topic of several research reports. UBS Group set a $28.00 price target on shares of Yelp in a research report on Tuesday, January 13th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on shares of Yelp from $31.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Yelp from $33.00 to $30.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Zacks Research cut Yelp from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, October 27th. Finally, Evercore ISI decreased their target price on shares of Yelp from $45.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 10th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $31.29.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Yelp

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Yelp by 268.1% during the second quarter. Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. now owns 753,173 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $25,811,000 after purchasing an additional 548,586 shares during the period. Russell Investments Group Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Yelp by 17.7% during the 2nd quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 295,562 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $10,148,000 after acquiring an additional 44,353 shares in the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Yelp by 4.2% during the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 2,359,112 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $80,827,000 after acquiring an additional 95,933 shares in the last quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH lifted its position in shares of Yelp by 23.1% during the second quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 683,935 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $23,438,000 after purchasing an additional 128,138 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its stake in Yelp by 18.1% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 417,250 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $13,018,000 after acquiring an additional 63,848 shares during the period. 90.11% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.