Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Insider Sells $159,543.18 in Stock

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) insider Bruce Posey sold 866 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $184.23, for a total transaction of $159,543.18. Following the sale, the insider owned 59,554 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,971,633.42. This represents a 1.43% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Qualys Price Performance

QLYS traded down $0.23 on Friday, hitting $181.98. The company had a trading volume of 511,225 shares, compared to its average volume of 764,218. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $149.61 and its 200 day moving average price is $115.51. Qualys, Inc. has a 1-year low of $74.51 and a 1-year high of $201.54. The stock has a market cap of $6.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.48 and a beta of 0.60.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $178.57 million. Qualys had a net margin of 29.38% and a return on equity of 37.52%. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.68 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.740-7.880 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.910-1.980 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.85 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Qualys

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 2nd quarter valued at $792,316,000. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new stake in Qualys during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $197,624,000. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Qualys in the 4th quarter worth approximately $78,591,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in shares of Qualys by 127.0% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 832,796 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $73,161,000 after buying an additional 465,952 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alyeska Investment Group L.P. acquired a new stake in Qualys in the third quarter worth $45,854,000. Institutional investors own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on QLYS shares. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on shares of Qualys from $100.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 8th. Wedbush decreased their price objective on Qualys from $155.00 to $125.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 7th. DA Davidson boosted their target price on Qualys from $135.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, William Blair cut Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 28th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $170.53.

About Qualys

Qualys, Inc (NASDAQ: QLYS) is a leading provider of cloud-based security and compliance solutions designed to help organizations streamline their IT security programs. Operating on a unified, modular platform, Qualys offers continuous visibility into global IT assets through a combination of lightweight cloud agents and on-premises scanner appliances. The platform supports an array of security and compliance use cases, enabling real-time detection of vulnerabilities, policy violations and misconfigurations across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments.

The company’s flagship Qualys Cloud Platform delivers a suite of integrated applications, including vulnerability management, detection and response (VMDR), policy compliance, web application scanning, file integrity monitoring, asset inventory and container security.