First Trust Advisors LP Decreases Stock Holdings in Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

First Trust Advisors LP lessened its holdings in Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 27.4% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 996,064 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 376,523 shares during the quarter. First Trust Advisors LP owned approximately 2.83% of Qualys worth $87,504,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Root Financial Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of Qualys by 206.2% during the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 297 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Strive Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 4th quarter worth about $27,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. lifted its stake 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 last quarter. Allworth Financial LP lifted its stake in Qualys by 86.8% during the third quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 284 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $38,000 after purchasing an additional 132 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Employees Retirement System of Texas acquired a new position in Qualys in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $43,000. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of Qualys from $90.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, July 13th. Royal Bank Of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $145.00 price target on shares of Qualys in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Morgan Stanley set a $96.00 price target on Qualys in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Scotiabank upgraded Qualys from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $100.00 to $190.00 in a research note on Monday, July 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised Qualys from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Thursday, July 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $141.80.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 2,384 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.18, for a total value of $238,829.12. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 66,301 shares in the company, valued at $6,642,034.18. This trade represents a 3.47% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Thomas Berquist sold 939 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.75, for a total transaction of $103,994.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 6,781 shares in the company, valued at $750,995.75. This represents a 12.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 73,846 shares of company stock worth $9,239,073. 0.72% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Qualys Stock Performance

Shares of QLYS opened at $137.48 on Friday. Qualys, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $74.51 and a fifty-two week high of $167.86. The company has a market capitalization of $4.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.68 and a beta of 0.61. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $125.13 and a 200-day simple moving average of $110.59.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.81 by $0.14. The firm had revenue of $175.64 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.15% and a net margin of 29.41%.The business’s revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.67 earnings per share. 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 forecast that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

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.