By Carly Forster
Food delivery these days has come a long way since picking up the phone to order a pizza.
Yelp in the News
Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) recently teamed up with EatStreet, an online food ordering service, in an effort to make online ordering more widely available for their featured restaurants. Courtesy of EatStreet’s assimilation into the Yelp platform, people can now place their desired food orders directly from the restaurant pages featured on Yelp. EatStreet CEO Matt Howard commented, “Yelp is a respected brand and a great company…We’re very excited to bring this added value to our restaurants across the country, and enable them to reach new customers at no extra cost.”
A Financial Expert’s Opinion
On June 27, MKM Partners analyst Rob Sanderson reiterated a BUY rating for Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP) with an $86 price target. He noted, “The stock has rebounded from extreme collapse higher in the near-term.” Sanderson has recommended Yelp a total of 6 times, earning him a +43.6% average return on the stock.
Sanderson’s Past Recommendations
Sanderson has been known to make recommendations for big Internet moguls like Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), helping him earn a +11.4% average return on all stocks and a 57% success rate in making recommendations.
On July 15, 2013, Sanderson issued a BUY rating for Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) with a $36 price target. He noted, “Despite its downturn, YHOO has retained a very large base of users. Audience has been surprisingly resilient in YHOO’s core verticals.” Since then, Yahoo has gone up from $27.34 to $34.25, helping him earn a +14.7% average return on the stock.
In addition, on January 15 of this year, Sanderson maintained a BUY rating for Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) and raised his price target from $370 to $440. He explained, “We think NFLX is in by far the best position to grow a very large, global subscription business in this emerging opportunity. The company has the lion’s share of know-how, scale advantages over other OTT providers and the most actual data on viewing behavior of any provider of video services across any platform.” Since then, Netflix has gone up from $330.38 to $442.08, contributing to Sanderson’s +52.8% average return on the stock.
Conversely, Sanderson has not always been accurate with his recommendations. On March 5 if this year, Sanderson raised his rating for Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) from SELL to Neutral, reasoning “Putting longer-term secular concerns aside and presenting a very bullish earnings power framework, we still struggle to justify a Buy-rating at current levels. We do think that investors are not factoring potential for unfavorable music licensing rates on renewal, but the outcome will not become known until late-2015.” Since the, Pandora has dropped from $39.43 to $29.3, helping lower his average return on the stock to -38.7%.
Conclusion
Can you trust Sanderson’s most recent recommendation based off his financial advice history??
Carly Forster writes about stock market news. She can be reached at [email protected]
