Freestone Grove Partners LP Acquires Shares of 68,754 Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

Freestone Grove Partners LP bought a new position in Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 68,754 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $9,453,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of QLYS. Sei Investments Co. grew its stake in Qualys by 28.8% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 47,295 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $4,155,000 after purchasing an additional 10,569 shares in the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 306.4% during the 1st quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 36,253 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,185,000 after purchasing an additional 27,333 shares in the last quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 63.5% during the 2nd quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB now owns 17,251 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $2,372,000 after purchasing an additional 6,700 shares in the last quarter. Chase Investment Counsel Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 2nd quarter valued at about $2,749,000. Finally, Park State Asset Management acquired a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 2nd quarter valued at about $5,942,000. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Qualys Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:QLYS opened at $188.59 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $156.38 and its 200-day moving average is $117.42. The company has a market cap of $6.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.63 and a beta of 0.60. Qualys, Inc. has a 52-week low of $74.51 and a 52-week high of $201.54.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $178.57 million. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.52% and a net margin of 29.38%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.68 EPS. 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 predict that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.85 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Qualys news, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 866 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $184.23, for a total value of $159,543.18. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 59,554 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,971,633.42. This represents a 1.43% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 196,686 shares in the company, valued at $26,552,610. This represents 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 sold a total of 72,845 shares of company stock valued at $9,377,536 over the last ninety days. 0.72% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently commented on QLYS shares. Robert W. Baird set a $160.00 price objective on Qualys in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Qualys from $145.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. DA Davidson increased their price target on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Qualys from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Monday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $170.53.

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.