Insider Selling: Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) CEO Sells 30,000 Shares

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) CEO Sumedh Thakar sold 30,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer owned 196,686 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $26,552,610. This represents a 13.23% 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.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of QLYS traded up $5.95 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $143.44. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 842,964 shares, compared to its average volume of 775,061. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $103.66 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $108.93. Qualys, Inc. has a 52-week low of $74.51 and a 52-week high of $155.47. The company has a market cap of $5.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.75 and a beta of 0.61.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 29.41% and a return on equity of 37.15%. The business had revenue of $175.64 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.67 EPS. Qualys’s 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. Research analysts predict that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have weighed in on QLYS shares. Truist Financial reduced their target price on Qualys from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 24th. Scotiabank cut their price objective on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $100.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Qualys in a research note on Tuesday, April 14th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Qualys from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $96.00 target price on shares of Qualys in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have issued a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $125.86.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Root Financial Partners LLC lifted its stake in Qualys by 206.2% in the first quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 297 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Strive Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Qualys during the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its holdings in shares of Qualys by 204.3% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 213 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 143 shares during the period. Allworth Financial LP lifted its stake in shares of Qualys by 86.8% in the 3rd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 284 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $38,000 after acquiring an additional 132 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Employees Retirement System of Texas purchased a new stake in Qualys during the 4th quarter valued at about $43,000. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.