Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Insider Sells $86,871.95 in Stock

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) insider Bruce Posey sold 865 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.43, for a total transaction of $86,871.95. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 65,436 shares in the company, valued at $6,571,737.48. The trade was a 1.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Qualys Price Performance

QLYS stock traded up $0.30 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $100.85. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 665,822 shares, compared to its average volume of 759,484. Qualys, Inc. has a twelve month low of $74.51 and a twelve month high of $155.47. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $89.76 and its 200 day moving average price is $115.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.11 and a beta of 0.58.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 earnings per share (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 firm had revenue of $175.64 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.67 EPS. The company’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. Equities analysts expect that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently weighed in on QLYS. Morgan Stanley set a $96.00 price objective on shares of Qualys in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Qualys from $113.00 to $87.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Wedbush lowered their price objective on shares of Qualys from $155.00 to $125.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 7th. William Blair lowered shares of Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 28th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have given a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $122.14.

Institutional Trading of Qualys

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Root Financial Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Qualys by 206.2% during the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 297 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 200 shares during the period. Strive Financial Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 4th quarter worth about $27,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. boosted its holdings in shares of Qualys by 204.3% during the 4th 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. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Qualys during the 3rd quarter worth about $29,000. Finally, Allworth Financial LP boosted its holdings in shares of Qualys by 86.8% during the 3rd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 284 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $38,000 after buying an additional 132 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

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.