Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Shares Up 7% – Still a Buy?

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) was up 7% during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $158.73 and last traded at $162.1470. Approximately 79,220 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 90% from the average daily volume of 760,565 shares. The stock had previously closed at $151.54.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

QLYS has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their target price on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. William Blair lowered Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 28th. Truist Financial lowered their price target on Qualys from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 24th. Weiss Ratings raised Qualys from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 2nd. Finally, Wedbush reduced their price objective on Qualys from $155.00 to $125.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $133.13.

Qualys Price Performance

The company has a market cap of $5.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.11 and a beta of 0.61. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $114.43 and its 200-day simple moving average is $109.49.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.67 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.8% on a year-over-year basis. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.440-7.650 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-1.800 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Qualys news, 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 transaction, the chief executive officer owned 196,686 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,552,610. This trade represents a 13.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Wendy Pfeiffer sold 500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.55, for a total value of $55,275.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 12,710 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,405,090.50. This trade represents a 3.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 73,846 shares of company stock worth $9,239,073 in the last quarter. 0.72% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. NewEdge Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Qualys by 3,948.0% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 2,024 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $255,000 after purchasing an additional 1,974 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Qualys in the second quarter valued at approximately $292,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its position in shares of Qualys by 3,218.8% in the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 531 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $76,000 after buying an additional 515 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Qualys by 482.0% during the second quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 646 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $92,000 after buying an additional 535 shares during the period. Finally, Amundi lifted its stake in shares of Qualys by 47.1% during the second quarter. Amundi now owns 21,365 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $3,076,000 after buying an additional 6,844 shares during the period. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other 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.