Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Insider Bruce Posey Sells 865 Shares of Stock

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) insider Bruce Posey sold 865 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.43, for a total transaction of $86,871.95. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 65,436 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,571,737.48. This trade represents a 1.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Qualys Stock Up 0.3%

Shares of NASDAQ QLYS opened at $100.85 on Friday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $89.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $115.25. Qualys, Inc. has a 52-week low of $74.51 and a 52-week high of $155.47. The firm has a market cap of $3.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.11 and a beta of 0.58.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 earnings per share (EPS) 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 business had revenue of $175.64 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.67 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.440-7.650 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-1.800 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on QLYS. DA Davidson lowered their price target on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $125.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 6th. TD Cowen restated a “hold” rating on shares of Qualys in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Scotiabank lowered their price target on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $100.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Qualys from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. 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 company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $122.14.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Qualys

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 2.9% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,401,798 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $582,490,000 after acquiring an additional 123,962 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 24.1% in the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,372,587 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $182,417,000 after acquiring an additional 266,924 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 4.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,256,002 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $168,380,000 after acquiring an additional 48,877 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 7.0% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,156,412 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $153,687,000 after acquiring an additional 75,397 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 46.9% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,012,100 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $144,133,000 after acquiring an additional 323,324 shares during the period. 99.31% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.