Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) CEO Sumedh Thakar Sells 13,200 Shares of Stock

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) CEO Sumedh Thakar sold 13,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $114.73, for a total value of $1,514,436.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 249,886 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $28,669,420.78. This represents a 5.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Qualys Stock Performance

Shares of QLYS stock opened at $113.42 on Wednesday. Qualys, Inc. has a 52-week low of $74.51 and a 52-week high of $155.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.36 and a beta of 0.65. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $90.91 and a 200 day moving average price of $113.38.

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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $173.63 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.67 EPS. Qualys’s quarterly 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, sell-side analysts forecast that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Qualys

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Qualys by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,401,798 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $582,490,000 after purchasing an additional 123,962 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP raised its position in Qualys by 24.1% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,372,587 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $182,417,000 after purchasing an additional 266,924 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Qualys by 4.0% during 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 purchasing an additional 48,877 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its position in Qualys by 7.0% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,156,412 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $153,687,000 after purchasing an additional 75,397 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in Qualys by 46.9% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,012,100 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $144,133,000 after purchasing an additional 323,324 shares in the last quarter. 99.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on QLYS shares. Wall Street Zen lowered Qualys from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 2nd. DA Davidson decreased their price target on Qualys from $135.00 to $125.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Weiss Ratings lowered Qualys from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Qualys from $113.00 to $87.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Truist Financial decreased their target price on Qualys from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 24th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Qualys presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $122.14.

About Qualys

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.