Royal Bank of Canada Acquires 4,439 Shares of Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

Royal Bank of Canada grew its holdings in Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 12.4% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 40,207 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 4,439 shares during the period. Royal Bank of Canada’s holdings in Qualys were worth $3,532,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Root Financial Partners LLC raised its stake in Qualys by 206.2% in the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 297 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares during the period. Strive Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in Qualys during the 4th quarter valued at $27,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. boosted its position in Qualys by 204.3% during the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 213 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares during the period. Employees Retirement System of Texas bought a new position in Qualys during the fourth quarter worth $43,000. Finally, Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd increased its holdings in shares of Qualys by 37,400.0% in the fourth quarter. Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd now owns 375 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $50,000 after purchasing an additional 374 shares during the last quarter. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Qualys Price Performance

QLYS stock opened at $186.05 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.19 and a beta of 0.60. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $143.63 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $114.16. Qualys, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $74.51 and a fifty-two week high of $201.54.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.98 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $178.57 million. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.52% and a net margin of 29.38%.The company’s revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $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 expect that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.85 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on QLYS shares. Northland Securities set a $208.00 price objective on shares of Qualys in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. DA Davidson lifted their target price on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Qualys from $139.00 to $150.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Piper Sandler increased their price target on shares of Qualys from $100.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has given 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 $170.53.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Qualys news, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 30,000 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $135.00, for a total value of $4,050,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 196,686 shares in the company, valued at $26,552,610. The trade was a 13.23% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Joo Mi Kim sold 1,627 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.17, for a total transaction of $162,976.59. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 83,211 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,335,245.87. This represents a 1.92% 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. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 76,855 shares of company stock valued at $9,706,670. 0.72% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Qualys 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.