Stephens Inc. AR Takes $595,000 Position in Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP)

Stephens Inc. AR bought a new stake in Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 15,362 shares of the local business review company’s stock, valued at approximately $595,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its stake in Yelp by 115.9% in the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 976 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $34,000 after buying an additional 524 shares during the period. CWM LLC increased its stake in Yelp by 87.5% in the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 3,568 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $125,000 after buying an additional 1,665 shares during the period. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC increased its stake in Yelp by 54.5% in the 3rd quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 1,148 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 405 shares during the period. Creative Planning increased its stake in Yelp by 168.6% in the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 19,131 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $671,000 after buying an additional 12,008 shares during the period. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. increased its stake in Yelp by 113.0% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 6,221 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $230,000 after buying an additional 3,300 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.11% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on YELP. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Yelp from $34.00 to $35.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. StockNews.com raised shares of Yelp from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Robert W. Baird cut their target price on shares of Yelp from $39.00 to $37.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Evercore ISI raised shares of Yelp to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $37.17.

Yelp Stock Performance

NYSE:YELP opened at $37.28 on Friday. Yelp Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $32.56 and a fifty-two week high of $45.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.33, a P/E/G ratio of 0.55 and a beta of 1.33. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $39.49 and its 200-day simple moving average is $36.53.

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The local business review company reported $0.62 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by $0.09. Yelp had a net margin of 8.48% and a return on equity of 16.02%. On average, research analysts forecast that Yelp Inc. will post 1.8 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO David A. Schwarzbach sold 10,000 shares of Yelp stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $39.72, for a total value of $397,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 201,988 shares in the company, valued at $8,022,963.36. This trade represents a 4.72 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Craig Saldanha sold 1,000 shares of Yelp stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.40, for a total transaction of $38,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 182,558 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,010,227.20. This trade represents a 0.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 44,011 shares of company stock worth $1,677,131 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 7.40% of the company’s stock.

Yelp 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.