Head-To-Head Comparison: Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO) and Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS)

Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO) and Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) are both technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, valuation, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Fair Isaac and Qualys, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Fair Isaac	0	5	11	0	2.69
Qualys	1	12	2	2	2.29

Fair Isaac currently has a consensus target price of $1,553.69, indicating a potential upside of 60.64%. Qualys has a consensus target price of $173.87, indicating a potential downside of 2.37%. Given Fair Isaac’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe Fair Isaac is more favorable than Qualys.

Profitability

This table compares Fair Isaac and Qualys’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Fair Isaac	34.05%	-32.51%	40.61%
Qualys	29.38%	37.52%	19.41%

Risk & Volatility

Fair Isaac has a beta of 1.32, suggesting that its share price is 32% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Qualys has a beta of 0.62, suggesting that its share price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Fair Isaac and Qualys”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Fair Isaac	$1.99 billion	10.49	$651.95 million	$34.62	27.94
Qualys	$702.98 million	8.76	$198.32 million	$5.78	30.81

Fair Isaac has higher revenue and earnings than Qualys. Fair Isaac is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Qualys, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

85.8% of Fair Isaac shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.3% of Qualys shares are held by institutional investors. 3.0% of Fair Isaac shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Qualys shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Fair Isaac beats Qualys on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Fair Isaac

Fair Isaac Corporation develops analytic, software, and digital decisioning technologies and services that enable businesses to automate, enhance, and connect decisions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Scores and Software. The Software segment provides pre-configured analytic and decision management solution designed for various business needs or processes, such as account origination, customer management, customer engagement, fraud detection, financial crimes compliance, and marketing, as well as associated professional services. This segment also offers FICO Platform, a modular software offering designed to support advanced analytic and decision use cases, as well as stand-alone analytic and decisioning software that can be configured by customers to address a wide range of business use cases. The Scores segment provides business-to-business scoring solutions and services for consumers that give clients access to predictive credit and other scores that can be integrated into their transaction streams and decision-making processes, as well as business-to-consumer scoring solutions comprising myFICO.com subscription offerings. It offers FICO Customer Analytics, FICO Responsible AI, FICO Advisors, FICO Business Outcome Simulator, FICO Forecaster, FICO TRIAD Customer Manager, FICO Blaze Advisor, FICO Xpress Optimization, FICO Falcon Fraud Manager, FICO Analytics Workbench, FICO Data Orchestrator, FICO DMP Streaming, FICO Decision Optimizer, and FICO Strategy Director, as well as software implementation and configuration services. The company markets its products and services primarily through its direct sales organization and indirect channels, as well as online. The company was formerly known as Fair Isaac & Company, Inc. and changed its name to Fair Isaac Corporation in July 1992. Fair Isaac Corporation was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana.

About Qualys

Qualys, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides cloud-based platform delivering information technology (IT), security, and compliance solutions in the United States and internationally. It offers Qualys Cloud Apps, which include Cybersecurity Asset Management and External Attack Surface Management; Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response; Web Application Scanning; Patch Management; Custom Assessment and Remediation; Multi-Vector Endpoint Detection and Response; Context Extended Detection and Response; Policy Compliance; File Integrity Monitoring; and Qualys TotalCloud, as well as Cloud Workload Protection, Cloud Detection and Response, Cloud Security Posture Management, Infrastructure as Code, and Container Security. The company's integrated suite of IT, security, and compliance solutions delivered on its Qualys' Enterprise TruRisk Platform enables customers to identify and manage IT assets; collect and analyze IT security data; discover and prioritize vulnerabilities; quantify cyber risk exposure; recommend and implement remediation actions; and verify the implementation of such actions. It also provides asset tagging and management, reporting and dashboards, questionnaires and collaboration, remediation and workflow, big data correlation and analytics engine, and alerts and notifications that enable clients to detect vulnerabilities, and measure and remediate cyber risk. The company offers its solutions to enterprises, government entities, and small and medium-sized businesses in various industries, including education, financial services, government, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, media, retail, technology, and utilities through its sales teams, as well as through its network of channel partners, such as security consulting organizations, managed service providers, resellers, cloud providers, and consulting firms. Qualys, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Foster City, California.