Bruce Posey Sells 866 Shares of Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Stock

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) insider Bruce Posey sold 866 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $184.23, for a total transaction of $159,543.18. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 59,554 shares in the company, valued at $10,971,633.42. The trade was a 1.43% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of QLYS opened at $181.98 on Friday. Qualys, Inc. has a 1-year low of $74.51 and a 1-year high of $201.54. The stock has a market cap of $6.30 billion, a PE ratio of 31.48 and a beta of 0.60. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $151.02 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $115.98.

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Qualys

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Strive Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Qualys during the fourth quarter worth about $27,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its holdings in Qualys by 204.3% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 213 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Kilter Group LLC purchased a new position in Qualys in the second quarter worth approximately $31,000. Continuum Advisory LLC acquired a new position in Qualys during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $33,000. Finally, Root Financial Partners LLC grew its holdings in Qualys by 206.2% during the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 297 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

QLYS has been the topic of a number of research reports. TD Cowen upped their price target on Qualys from $145.00 to $170.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. William Blair cut Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 28th. Zacks Research upgraded Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Qualys from $139.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, July 27th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded Qualys from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Thursday, July 16th. Two 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Qualys has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $170.53.

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.