Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Upgraded to Hold at Wedbush

Wedbush upgraded shares of Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) to a hold rating in a research note released on Thursday morning,Zacks reports.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on QLYS. Scotiabank lifted their price objective on Qualys from $190.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price target on Qualys from $145.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Qualys from $115.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Robert W. Baird set a $160.00 target price on shares of Qualys in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group set a $190.00 target price on shares of Qualys in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $173.87.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ QLYS opened at $150.28 on Thursday. Qualys has a one year low of $74.51 and a one year high of $201.54. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $166.35 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $122.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.00 and a beta of 0.62.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. Qualys had a net margin of 29.38% and a return on equity of 37.52%. The firm had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $178.57 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.68 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.740-7.880 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.910-1.980 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Qualys will post 5.85 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Sumedh 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 196,686 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,552,610. The trade was a 13.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 866 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $184.23, for a total transaction of $159,543.18. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 59,554 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,971,633.42. This trade represents a 1.43% decrease in their position. 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 57,205 shares of company stock valued at $7,592,800 in the last 90 days. 0.72% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Qualys

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of QLYS. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in Qualys in the second quarter worth $792,316,000. California State Teachers Retirement System lifted its position in Qualys by 13,255.9% during the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 5,651,801 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $777,066,000 after buying an additional 5,609,484 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 2nd quarter valued at $197,624,000. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 4th quarter valued at $78,591,000. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in shares of Qualys by 127.0% in the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 832,796 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $73,161,000 after buying an additional 465,952 shares during the period. 99.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Qualys Company Profile

Qualys, Inc is a cloud-based security and compliance company that helps organizations identify, assess and manage cyber risk across their information technology environments. Its platform is designed to provide visibility into assets, vulnerabilities, configurations and compliance requirements across networks, endpoints, applications and cloud infrastructure.

The company’s offerings include vulnerability management, asset inventory, policy compliance, cloud security, web application security and endpoint detection and response.