HighTower Advisors LLC Acquires 6,844 Shares of Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

HighTower Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 21.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 38,408 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 6,844 shares during the quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC’s holdings in Qualys were worth $5,281,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al purchased a new position in Qualys during the 2nd quarter valued at $2,852,000. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its stake in Qualys by 13,255.9% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 5,651,801 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $777,066,000 after purchasing an additional 5,609,484 shares during the period. AlphaGrep UK Ltd purchased a new stake in Qualys in the second quarter worth $301,000. Continuum Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of Qualys during the second quarter worth $33,000. Finally, Nykredit A S bought a new stake in shares of Qualys during the second quarter worth $231,000. 99.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently commented on QLYS shares. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Qualys from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Monday, August 24th. Northland Securities set a $208.00 price objective on shares of Qualys in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Robert W. Baird set a $160.00 price objective on shares of Qualys in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Wedbush downgraded shares of Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $175.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Qualys from $100.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $173.87.

Insider Buying and Selling at Qualys

In other news, CFO Joo Mi Kim sold 1,627 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.04, for a total value of $248,996.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 75,743 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,591,708.72. This represents a 2.10% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Wendy Pfeiffer sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.19, for a total transaction of $79,095.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 12,210 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,931,499.90. The trade was a 3.93% decrease in their position. 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. Insiders have sold 57,205 shares of company stock valued at $7,592,800 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.72% of the company’s stock.

Qualys Trading Down 5.1%

Shares of QLYS stock opened at $161.57 on Friday. Qualys, Inc. has a twelve month low of $74.51 and a twelve month high of $201.54. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $166.31 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $122.28. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.95 and a beta of 0.62.

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

Qualys Profile

Qualys, Inc is a cloud-based security and compliance company that helps organizations identify, assess and manage cyber risk across their information technology environments. Its platform is designed to provide visibility into assets, vulnerabilities, configurations and compliance requirements across networks, endpoints, applications and cloud infrastructure.

The company’s offerings include vulnerability management, asset inventory, policy compliance, cloud security, web application security and endpoint detection and response.