Insider Selling: Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) CTO Sells 461 Shares of Stock

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) CTO Sam Eaton sold 461 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.02, for a total transaction of $17,066.22. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer now owns 145,064 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,370,269.28. This represents a 0.32% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

Sam Eaton also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Thursday, May 22nd, Sam Eaton sold 12,904 shares of Yelp stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $38.18, for a total transaction of $492,674.72.

Yelp Trading Up 0.0%

NYSE:YELP opened at $37.51 on Thursday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $36.30 and a 200 day simple moving average of $37.37. The stock has a market cap of $2.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.54, a PEG ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 0.99. Yelp Inc. has a 1-year low of $32.29 and a 1-year high of $41.72.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 8th. The local business review company reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.31 by $0.05. Yelp had a return on equity of 18.07% and a net margin of 9.41%. The firm had revenue of $358.53 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $353.48 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.20 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Yelp Inc. will post 2.22 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Yelp

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its position in shares of Yelp by 375.2% during the 4th quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,331,835 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $51,542,000 after purchasing an additional 1,051,588 shares in the last quarter. LSV Asset Management boosted its stake in shares of Yelp by 122.8% in the first quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 1,902,318 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $70,443,000 after buying an additional 1,048,451 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in shares of Yelp in the first quarter valued at approximately $13,811,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in Yelp by 16.1% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,845,575 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $71,424,000 after buying an additional 255,775 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in Yelp by 70.7% during the 4th quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 601,632 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $23,283,000 after acquiring an additional 249,231 shares during the period. 90.11% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently commented on YELP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price target on Yelp from $36.00 to $35.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Yelp from $35.00 to $30.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 17th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Yelp has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $34.00.

Yelp Company Profile

Yelp Inc operates a platform that connects consumers with local businesses in the United States and internationally. The company's platform covers various 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.