Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) shares are up over 13.5% on Friday after Priceline (NASDAQ:PCLN) acquired peer OpenTable (NASDAQ:OPEN). At current price next resistance is at $74.90, the high of the day. Support is at $71.25.

YELP Equity Analysis

Yelp (NYSE:YELP) opened trading today as $65.84 and traded in the range of 71.83-75.68 today and saw over $16 million shares change hands. The average trading volume of the stock is $6 million. Yelp’s current valuation stands at $5.32 billion.

Sector Performance

Compared to other peers in the Internet Information Providers sector, YELP has outperformed in terms of quarterly revenue growth year over year at 0.66 vs. the industry average of 0.51. Yelp’s earnings per share however is currently at -.12, which is below the sector average of 0.77.

Analyst Summary

Yelp is currently covered by 32 Wall Street analysts. The mean target price is $83.34 according to First Call. This presents a modest upside to the current price of the equity. The Mean Recommendation sits at 2.1 which is based on 5 Strong Buy, 20 Buy and 7 Hold ratings.

The most recent analyst actions consisted of RBC Capital Markets upgrading the stock on May 1st and CRT Capital upgrading on April 9th.

The current quarter EPS consensus estimate is -.03 with revenue estimates of 86.27M. Sales are expected to grow at a 56.80% rate. Yelp reported actual earnings last quarter of -0.01 which beat the -.04 consensus estimate, a 75% surprise.

Corporate Profile

Yelp Inc. operates as an online local guide that connects people primarily with boutiques, mechanics, restaurants, and dentists. The company’s local advertising services include free online business account that enables businesses to view business trends, use the revenue estimator tool, message customers, update information, and offer Yelp deals and gift certificates; enhanced listing solution, which eliminates search advertising from the businesses’ profile pages and allows to incorporate a video clip or photo slide show on the pages; search and other ads services; and call to action, a feature that allows businesses to promote various transaction. It also offers brand advertising solutions, such as traditional display advertising comprising graphic and text display advertisements on company’s Website and mobile applications; and brand sponsorships for various national brands from automobile, financial services, logistics, consumer goods, and health and fitness industries comprising traditional display advertising. In addition, the company provides Yelp platform, which allows consumers to transact directly; online reservation services in restaurants and nightlife venues; Yelp deals, a product that allows local business owners to create promotional discounted deals for products and services; and gift certificates products for local business owners to sell full-price gift certificates directly to customers. It serves customers in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.