Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Director Sells 500 Shares of Stock

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) Director Wendy Pfeiffer sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.55, for a total transaction of $55,275.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 12,710 shares in the company, valued at $1,405,090.50. The trade was a 3.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Qualys Stock Performance

Shares of QLYS stock traded up $3.82 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $112.33. 563,875 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 749,157. Qualys, Inc. has a 52 week low of $74.51 and a 52 week high of $155.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.17 and a beta of 0.65. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $97.64 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $110.14.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.81 by $0.14. Qualys had a net margin of 29.41% and a return on equity of 37.15%. The firm had revenue of $175.64 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $173.63 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.67 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.440-7.650 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-1.800 EPS. Analysts expect that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on QLYS. Morgan Stanley set a $96.00 price objective on Qualys in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their price objective on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. William Blair downgraded Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 28th. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on Qualys from $135.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Truist Financial dropped their price target on Qualys from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Qualys presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $122.14.

Institutional Trading of Qualys

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in QLYS. RWA Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Qualys during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $80,820,000. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its holdings in Qualys by 62.4% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 125,636 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $16,769,000 after acquiring an additional 48,267 shares during the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC increased its position in Qualys by 748.6% in the 3rd quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 31,346 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $4,148,000 after acquiring an additional 27,652 shares during the period. Comerica Bank increased its position in Qualys by 100.6% in the 4th quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 22,710 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,018,000 after acquiring an additional 11,391 shares during the period. Finally, Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 9.8% during the fourth quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 208,832 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $27,754,000 after acquiring an additional 18,711 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Qualys Company Profile

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.