Insider Selling: Yelp (NYSE:YELP) CEO Sells $821,700.00 in Stock

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) CEO Jeremy Stoppelman sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $27.39, for a total transaction of $821,700.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 756,458 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $20,719,384.62. This trade represents a 3.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website.

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

• On Friday, January 23rd, Jeremy Stoppelman sold 30,000 shares of Yelp stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.74, for a total transaction of $862,200.00.
• 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 transaction of $842,100.00.
• On Friday, January 16th, Jeremy Stoppelman sold 30,000 shares of Yelp stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.48, for a total transaction of $854,400.00.

Yelp Trading Down 0.6%

Shares of NYSE:YELP opened at $27.34 on Friday. Yelp Inc. has a 12 month low of $26.96 and a 12 month high of $41.22. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $29.60 and a 200 day moving average price of $31.17. The company has a market cap of $1.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.10, a PEG ratio of 0.51 and a beta of 0.55.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 6th. The local business review company reported $0.61 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.47 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $376.04 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $368.39 million. Yelp had a return on equity of 20.33% and a net margin of 10.23%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.56 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Yelp Inc. will post 2.22 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Yelp

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Bfsg LLC grew its stake in Yelp by 110.3% in the third quarter. Bfsg LLC now owns 839 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 440 shares in the last quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. bought a new position in shares of Yelp during the 2nd quarter worth $28,000. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Yelp by 100.0% during the third quarter. CIBC Private Wealth Group LLC now owns 892 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 446 shares during the period. MAI Capital Management raised its holdings in shares of Yelp by 1,102.0% in the second quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 1,202 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $41,000 after acquiring an additional 1,102 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hudson Bay Capital Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Yelp in the third quarter valued at about $55,000. Institutional investors own 90.11% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently commented on YELP. UBS Group set a $28.00 price target on shares of Yelp in a research note on Tuesday, January 13th. Zacks Research raised shares of Yelp from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $33.00 target price on Yelp in a research report on Tuesday, October 14th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Yelp in a report on Friday, January 9th. Finally, Evercore ISI decreased their price target on Yelp from $45.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $31.29.

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.