Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) Stock Rated “Hold” by Sell-Side Brokerages

Shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the seventeen ratings firms that are covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $173.87.

A number of equities analysts have commented on the company. Zacks Research upgraded Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 11th. Weiss Ratings raised Qualys from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Thursday. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on Qualys from $150.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Northland Securities set a $208.00 target price on Qualys in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their target price on Qualys from $100.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Qualys news, Director Wendy Pfeiffer sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $158.19, for a total transaction of $79,095.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 12,210 shares in the company, valued at $1,931,499.90. This represents a 3.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Bruce Posey sold 882 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.17, for a total transaction of $139,505.94. Following the sale, the insider owned 62,689 shares in the company, valued at $9,915,519.13. The trade was a 1.39% 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 7,941 shares of company stock worth $1,326,739 in the last ninety days. 0.72% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Qualys

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in shares of Qualys in the 2nd quarter valued at $792,316,000. Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 2nd quarter valued at $197,624,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in Qualys by 127.0% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 832,796 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $73,161,000 after acquiring an additional 465,952 shares during the last quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. grew its position in Qualys by 402.2% during the 4th quarter. Clark Capital Management Group Inc. now owns 363,593 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $48,322,000 after acquiring an additional 291,192 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in Qualys during the 2nd quarter worth $39,044,000. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:QLYS opened at $202.42 on Wednesday. Qualys has a 12-month low of $74.51 and a 12-month high of $204.40. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $180.98 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $135.36. The firm has a market cap of $7.00 billion, a PE ratio of 35.02 and a beta of 0.60.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $178.57 million. Qualys had a net margin of 29.38% and a return on equity of 37.52%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.68 earnings per share. 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, research analysts expect that Qualys will post 5.84 EPS for the current year.

About Qualys

Qualys, Inc provides cloud-based information technology, security and compliance solutions for organizations worldwide. Its platform is designed to help businesses identify, assess and manage security vulnerabilities across their networks, endpoints, cloud environments and web applications.

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