Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) Short Interest Update

Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) was the target of a large decrease in short interest in February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 4,030,000 shares, a decrease of 14.8% from the February 13th total of 4,730,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 718,600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 5.6 days. Approximately 6.4% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Yelp news, insider Carmen Amara sold 11,238 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.00, for a total transaction of $393,330.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 108,123 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,784,305. The trade was a 9.42 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Craig Saldanha sold 1,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.99, for a total transaction of $37,990.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 183,558 shares in the company, valued at $6,973,368.42. The trade was a 0.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 57,727 shares of company stock worth $2,083,317 in the last three months. 7.40% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Yelp by 1.8% during the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 2,743,899 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $96,256,000 after acquiring an additional 48,363 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Yelp by 0.9% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,553,227 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $89,567,000 after acquiring an additional 23,719 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in Yelp by 9.3% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,924,457 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $74,477,000 after acquiring an additional 164,149 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake 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 acquiring an additional 255,775 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Yelp by 0.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,774,878 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $68,702,000 after acquiring an additional 15,649 shares in the last quarter. 90.11% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Yelp from $34.00 to $35.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Yelp currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $37.17.

Yelp Stock Performance

NYSE:YELP opened at $35.43 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $37.53 and its 200-day moving average is $36.66. Yelp has a 52 week low of $32.56 and a 52 week high of $41.72. The firm has a market cap of $2.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.45, a P/E/G ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.40.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 13th. The local business review company reported $0.62 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by $0.09. Yelp had a net margin of 9.41% and a return on equity of 18.07%. The company had revenue of $361.95 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $350.73 million. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Yelp will post 2.22 earnings per share for the current year.

About Yelp

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.