Qualys, Inc. $QLYS Shares Purchased by Principal Financial Group Inc.

Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 19.1% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 140,317 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 22,498 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Qualys were worth $12,327,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. LGT Fund Management Co Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Qualys in the first quarter valued at $2,064,000. Comerica Bank lifted its stake in Qualys by 100.6% during the 4th quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 22,710 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $3,018,000 after acquiring an additional 11,391 shares in the last quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH boosted its holdings in Qualys by 9.8% during the 4th quarter. Fort Washington Investment Advisors Inc. OH now owns 208,832 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $27,754,000 after acquiring an additional 18,711 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Qualys by 4.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,256,002 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $168,380,000 after acquiring an additional 48,877 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new position in Qualys in the 1st quarter valued at about $914,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Qualys

In related news, Director Thomas Berquist sold 939 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.75, for a total value of $103,994.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 6,781 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $750,995.75. This represents a 12.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Joo Mi Kim sold 965 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, July 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $143.44, for a total transaction of $138,419.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 81,215 shares in the company, valued at $11,649,479.60. This represents a 1.17% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 73,846 shares of company stock worth $9,239,073. 0.72% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on QLYS. Morgan Stanley set a $96.00 price target on shares of Qualys in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $145.00 target price on shares of Qualys in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Canaccord Genuity Group reduced their target price on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. TD Cowen boosted their price target on shares of Qualys from $90.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, July 13th. Finally, Truist Financial increased their price objective on Qualys from $85.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $141.80.

Qualys Trading Up 2.8%

Qualys stock opened at $137.48 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $4.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.68 and a beta of 0.61. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $125.13 and a 200-day simple moving average of $110.59. Qualys, Inc. has a 12-month low of $74.51 and a 12-month high of $167.86.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last posted its 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 return on equity of 37.15% and a net margin of 29.41%.The firm had revenue of $175.64 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.67 earnings per share. Qualys’s revenue for the quarter 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, sell-side analysts forecast that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Qualys 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.