Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) Given Consensus Rating of “Hold” by Brokerages

Shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the seventeen ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, twelve have given a hold recommendation, three have given a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $141.80.

QLYS has been the topic of several recent research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $145.00 price target on shares of Qualys in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Scotiabank upgraded shares of Qualys from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $100.00 to $190.00 in a report on Monday, July 6th. Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their price target on Qualys from $150.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Wedbush cut their price objective on shares of Qualys from $155.00 to $125.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 7th.

Insider Activity

In other Qualys news, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 2,384 shares of the company’s 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. The trade was a 3.47% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 30,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $135.00, for a total transaction of $4,050,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 196,686 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,552,610. This trade represents a 13.23% 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 sold a total of 73,846 shares of company stock valued at $9,239,073 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.72% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. LGT Fund Management Co Ltd. acquired a new position in Qualys in the 1st quarter valued at $2,064,000. Comerica Bank boosted its stake in shares of Qualys by 100.6% in the 4th quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 22,710 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,018,000 after purchasing an additional 11,391 shares in the last quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH grew its stake in shares of Qualys by 9.8% during the fourth quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 208,832 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $27,754,000 after buying an additional 18,711 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Qualys by 4.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,256,002 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $168,380,000 after purchasing an additional 48,877 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new position in shares of Qualys in the first quarter valued at approximately $914,000. 99.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of QLYS opened at $133.74 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $124.18 and its 200-day simple moving average is $110.40. The company has a market capitalization of $4.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.01 and a beta of 0.61. Qualys has a one year low of $74.51 and a one year high of $167.86.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.81 by $0.14. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.15% and a net margin of 29.41%.The company had revenue of $175.64 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.67 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue 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, sell-side analysts anticipate that Qualys will post 5.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Qualys Company 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.