Bruce Posey Sells 2,384 Shares of Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Stock

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) insider Bruce Posey sold 2,384 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.18, for a total value of $238,829.12. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 66,301 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,642,034.18. The trade was a 3.47% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of QLYS stock opened at $102.37 on Friday. Qualys, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $74.51 and a fifty-two week high of $155.47. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $89.98 and its two-hundred day moving average is $115.16. The firm has a market cap of $3.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.38 and a beta of 0.58.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.81 by $0.14. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.15% and a net margin of 29.41%.The company 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 firm posted $1.67 EPS. The business’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. As a group, research analysts expect that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Qualys

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in QLYS. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in shares of Qualys by 62.4% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 125,636 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $16,769,000 after acquiring an additional 48,267 shares during the period. RWA Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Qualys in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $80,820,000. Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its position in shares of Qualys by 26.3% in the 3rd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 87,217 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $11,541,000 after acquiring an additional 18,164 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Qualys by 748.6% in the 3rd quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 31,346 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $4,148,000 after acquiring an additional 27,652 shares during the period. Finally, Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH lifted its position in shares of Qualys by 9.8% in the 4th quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 208,832 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $27,754,000 after acquiring an additional 18,711 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently commented on QLYS shares. Wedbush lowered their price objective on Qualys from $155.00 to $125.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on Qualys from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Weiss Ratings lowered Qualys from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a report on Wednesday. Wall Street Zen lowered Qualys from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, May 2nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on Qualys from $113.00 to $87.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $122.14.

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.