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

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) has earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the seventeen brokerages that are covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, twelve have given a hold recommendation, two have assigned a buy recommendation and two have given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $173.8667.

A number of research analysts have recently commented on QLYS shares. Wall Street Zen lowered Qualys from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Wedbush cut shares of Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $175.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Thursday. DA Davidson boosted their price target on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised shares of Qualys from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Monday, August 24th.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of QLYS stock opened at $150.28 on Friday. Qualys has a 12-month low of $74.51 and a 12-month high of $201.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.00 and a beta of 0.62. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $166.35 and a 200 day simple moving average of $122.47.

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. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.52% and a net margin of 29.38%.The firm had revenue of $182.18 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $178.57 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.68 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter 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. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Qualys will post 5.85 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Qualys

In other Qualys news, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 30,000 shares of the 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 196,686 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,552,610. This trade represents a 13.23% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Bruce 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 value of $159,543.18. Following the transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 57,205 shares of company stock worth $7,592,800 in the last three months. 0.72% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of QLYS. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in Qualys in the second quarter worth about $792,316,000. California State Teachers Retirement System boosted its position in shares of Qualys by 13,255.9% during the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 5,651,801 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $777,066,000 after purchasing an additional 5,609,484 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new position in shares of Qualys in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $197,624,000. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Qualys in the 4th quarter worth approximately $78,591,000. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 465,952 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

About Qualys

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.