Hsbc Holdings PLC Sells 3,893 Shares of Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

Hsbc Holdings PLC lessened its stake in shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 23.0% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 13,005 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 3,893 shares during the period. Hsbc Holdings PLC’s holdings in Qualys were worth $1,121,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Qualys by 3,948.0% in the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 2,024 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $255,000 after purchasing an additional 1,974 shares during the period. Sivia Capital Partners LLC bought a new stake in Qualys during the second quarter worth about $292,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. grew its stake in Qualys by 3,218.8% during the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 531 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $76,000 after buying an additional 515 shares in the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Qualys by 482.0% in the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 646 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $92,000 after buying an additional 535 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi increased its holdings in Qualys by 47.1% in the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 21,365 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,076,000 after buying an additional 6,844 shares during the period. 99.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on QLYS shares. Wall Street Zen cut Qualys from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 2nd. Morgan Stanley set a $96.00 price target on Qualys in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Qualys from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. Scotiabank raised Qualys from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $100.00 to $190.00 in a research note on Monday, July 6th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $145.00 target price on shares of Qualys in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $142.53.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of Qualys stock opened at $135.75 on Wednesday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $126.58 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $110.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.37 and a beta of 0.61. Qualys, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $74.51 and a fifty-two week high of $167.86.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 company had revenue of $175.64 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $173.63 million. During the same period in the prior 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. On average, analysts expect that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Qualys

In other news, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 2,384 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.18, for a total transaction of $238,829.12. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 66,301 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,642,034.18. The trade was a 3.47% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 30,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.00, for a total transaction of $4,050,000.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 196,686 shares in the company, valued at $26,552,610. The trade was a 13.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 75,228 shares of company stock valued at $9,457,674 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.72% of the company’s stock.

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.