Hsbc Holdings PLC Makes New $1.09 Million Investment in Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

Hsbc Holdings PLC acquired a new position in shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 7,776 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $1,088,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in QLYS. Root Financial Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Qualys by 206.2% during 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 period. Strive Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in Qualys during the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. boosted its stake in Qualys by 204.3% in the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 213 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares during the period. Kilter Group LLC bought a new stake in Qualys in the 2nd quarter valued at $31,000. Finally, Employees Retirement System of Texas acquired a new position in Qualys in the 4th quarter valued at $43,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have weighed in on QLYS. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on Qualys from $100.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of Qualys from $145.00 to $170.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Zacks Research raised shares of Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $160.00 price objective on shares of Qualys in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $170.53.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:QLYS opened at $186.14 on Tuesday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $159.45 and its 200 day simple moving average is $118.49. Qualys, Inc. has a 1 year low of $74.51 and a 1 year high of $201.54. The company has a market capitalization of $6.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.20 and a beta of 0.60.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $178.57 million. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.52% and a net margin of 29.38%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.68 EPS. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.740-7.880 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.910-1.980 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.85 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 1,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.00, for a total transaction of $155,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 63,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,853,505. This represents a 1.55% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Thomas Berquist sold 939 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.75, for a total transaction of $103,994.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 6,781 shares in the company, valued at approximately $750,995.75. This represents a 12.16% 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. Insiders sold 58,614 shares of company stock worth $7,747,968 in the last ninety days. 0.72% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.