Yelp Inc. $YELP Shares Sold by Vanguard Group Inc.

Vanguard Group Inc. lowered its position in shares of Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,402,348 shares of the local business review company’s stock after selling 209,947 shares during the quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. owned about 0.13% of Yelp worth $262,153,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Bfsg LLC raised its position in shares of Yelp by 110.3% during the 3rd quarter. Bfsg LLC now owns 839 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 440 shares in the last quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. bought a new position in shares of Yelp in the 2nd quarter worth about $28,000. MAI Capital Management grew its position in shares of Yelp by 1,102.0% during the 2nd quarter. MAI Capital Management now owns 1,202 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $41,000 after buying an additional 1,102 shares during the last quarter. Strs Ohio bought a new position in Yelp in the first quarter worth about $56,000. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in Yelp by 14.5% in the second quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,056 shares of the local business review company’s stock valued at $105,000 after acquiring an additional 386 shares during the period. 90.11% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Evercore dropped their price target on Yelp from $45.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Robert W. Baird set a $25.00 price target on shares of Yelp in a research report on Friday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on shares of Yelp from $33.00 to $25.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 17th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Yelp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 14th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Yelp from $31.00 to $32.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Reduce” and a consensus target price of $28.50.

Insider Activity at Yelp

In other news, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $27.54, for a total transaction of $826,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 964,827 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,571,335.58. This trade represents a 3.02% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO David A. Schwarzbach sold 13,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.41, for a total transaction of $410,535.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 127,627 shares in the company, valued at $3,881,137.07. The trade was a 9.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 252,459 shares of company stock valued at $6,994,849 over the last 90 days. 8.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Yelp Price Performance

Yelp stock opened at $22.23 on Friday. Yelp Inc. has a 12-month low of $19.60 and a 12-month high of $41.22. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.37 billion, a PE ratio of 9.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.55 and a beta of 0.55. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $26.70 and a 200-day simple moving average of $29.56.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The local business review company reported $0.61 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.14. Yelp had a return on equity of 19.96% and a net margin of 9.94%.The firm had revenue of $359.99 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $358.70 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.62 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts forecast that Yelp Inc. will post 2.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.