Christine Barone Sells 15,507 Shares of Yelp (NYSE:YELP) Stock

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) Director Christine Barone sold 15,507 shares of Yelp stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $22.95, for a total transaction of $355,885.65. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 15,928 shares in the company, valued at approximately $365,547.60. This represents a 49.33% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Yelp Trading Up 7.4%

Shares of NYSE:YELP opened at $23.65 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $1.30 billion, a PE ratio of 10.80, a P/E/G ratio of 2.36 and a beta of 0.47. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $25.22 and its 200 day moving average price is $26.37. Yelp Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $19.60 and a fifty-two week high of $37.85. The company has a quick ratio of 1.74, a current ratio of 1.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The local business review company reported $0.30 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $361.46 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $353.47 million. Yelp had a net margin of 9.47% and a return on equity of 20.19%. Yelp’s quarterly revenue was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.36 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Yelp Inc. will post 1.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts recently weighed in on YELP shares. Robert W. Baird set a $28.00 price objective on shares of Yelp in a research report on Friday, May 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Yelp from $22.00 to $26.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Yelp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 14th. Evercore set a $30.00 price target on shares of Yelp in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Yelp from $28.00 to $24.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 15th. One 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. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Reduce” and an average price target of $27.88.

Institutional Trading of Yelp

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Yelp by 20.5% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,683,927 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $66,402,000 after buying an additional 457,261 shares in the last quarter. LSV Asset Management raised its position in shares of Yelp by 11.6% during 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 buying an additional 279,300 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its position in shares of Yelp by 8.3% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,976,150 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $61,656,000 after buying an additional 151,354 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in shares of Yelp by 7.0% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,501,764 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $51,458,000 after buying an additional 98,303 shares in the last quarter. Finally, River Road Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of Yelp by 1.4% during the 4th quarter. River Road Asset Management LLC now owns 1,161,711 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $35,304,000 after buying an additional 15,849 shares in the last quarter. 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.