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

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) has been assigned an average rating of “Hold” from the fourteen brokerages that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nine have assigned a hold recommendation, two have given a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $140.4615.

QLYS has been the topic of a number of research reports. Berenberg Bank initiated coverage on Qualys in a research note on Tuesday, November 18th. They set a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price target on the stock. Zacks Research lowered Qualys from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Northland Securities set a $162.00 target price on Qualys in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Morgan Stanley restated an “underweight” rating and set a $117.00 price target on shares of Qualys in a research note on Thursday, December 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Qualys from $117.00 to $113.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 6th.

Qualys Stock Down 1.3%

Shares of QLYS stock opened at $92.47 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $123.00 and a 200-day moving average of $131.57. The company has a market cap of $3.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.00 and a beta of 0.53. Qualys has a 52 week low of $85.14 and a 52 week high of $155.47.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The software maker reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $175.28 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.18 million. Qualys had a net margin of 29.64% and a return on equity of 37.65%. Qualys’s revenue was up 10.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.60 earnings per share. Qualys has set its Q1 2026 guidance at 1.760-1.830 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 7.170-7.450 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Qualys will post 3.85 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $133.76, for a total value of $668,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 247,800 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,145,728. This represents a 1.98% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 1,101 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $132.34, for a total value of $145,706.34. Following the transaction, the insider owned 68,598 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,078,259.32. This trade represents a 1.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 42,227 shares of company stock valued at $5,875,962. Corporate insiders own 0.88% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Qualys

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. RWA Wealth Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Qualys during the third quarter valued at about $80,820,000. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Qualys in the 4th quarter valued at about $78,591,000. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. purchased a new stake in Qualys in the 3rd quarter valued at about $45,854,000. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Qualys by 46.9% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,012,100 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $144,133,000 after buying an additional 323,324 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clark Capital Management Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Qualys by 402.2% in the 4th quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 363,593 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $48,322,000 after buying an additional 291,192 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.31% 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.