By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Yelp (NYSE:YELP) rose 5% Tuesday after Citi (NYSE:C) analyst Jason Bazinet called the shares of the provider of crowd-sourced reviews a buy.
Bazinet upgraded the stock from neutral with a price target of $48, which is 23% higher than the current price.
The analyst expects the 16-year-old company to benefit from four emerging trends.
“First, we expect local businesses – particularly restaurants – to recover as the economy opens up. Second, we see Yelp generating more revenue from leads within the services segment. Third, we expect more sales to migrate to the self-serve channel, lowering sales expenses. And, fourth, we expect lease costs to moderate as the firm subleases more of its office space,” he said in a note.
Last month, the company surprised with a higher profit for December quarter as revenue didn’t fall as much. Net income rose 23% on the year to $21.08 million. Net revenue was $233.19 million, down by 13%.