Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA Sells 52,693 Shares of Yelp Inc. $YELP

Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA cut its stake in Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) by 71.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 20,603 shares of the local business review company’s stock after selling 52,693 shares during the quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA’s holdings in Yelp were worth $626,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. LSV Asset Management grew its stake in Yelp by 14.8% during the third quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 2,402,938 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $74,972,000 after buying an additional 309,173 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in Yelp by 4.5% during the third quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,070,236 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $64,592,000 after buying an additional 88,860 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in Yelp by 8.3% during the third 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. grew its stake in Yelp by 7.0% during the second 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, Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its stake in Yelp by 35.4% during the third quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 925,898 shares of the local business review company’s stock worth $28,888,000 after buying an additional 241,963 shares in the last quarter. 90.11% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on YELP shares. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Yelp from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Yelp from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 11th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Yelp from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Yelp from $30.00 to $22.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 17th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $25.00 price objective on shares of Yelp in a research note on Friday, February 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and four have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $28.50.

Insider Activity at Yelp

In other news, Director Dan Jedda sold 1,464 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $21.02, for a total value of $30,773.28. Following the sale, the director directly owned 17,100 shares in the company, valued at approximately $359,442. This trade represents a 7.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO David A. Schwarzbach sold 7,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.60, for a total transaction of $199,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 209,300 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,567,380. The trade was a 3.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 216,264 shares of company stock valued at $5,820,193. 8.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Yelp Trading Up 1.8%

YELP opened at $27.92 on Friday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $23.93 and its 200-day moving average is $27.95. Yelp Inc. has a 1-year low of $19.60 and a 1-year high of $41.22. The company has a market cap of $1.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.41, a PEG ratio of 0.69 and a beta of 0.47.

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