The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company Has $5.58 Million Stock Holdings in Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS)

The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lowered its holdings in shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 6.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 43,457 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 2,979 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company owned about 0.12% of Qualys worth $5,582,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Tidal Investments LLC lifted its stake in shares of Qualys by 192.8% in the 1st quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 3,402 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $568,000 after acquiring an additional 2,240 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC bought a new position in Qualys in the first quarter valued at about $209,000. Park Avenue Securities LLC boosted its stake in shares of Qualys by 165.1% during the second quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 6,371 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $908,000 after purchasing an additional 3,968 shares in the last quarter. CWM LLC grew its holdings in shares of Qualys by 171.9% during the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 677 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $97,000 after purchasing an additional 428 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Csenge Advisory Group increased its stake in shares of Qualys by 34.3% in the second quarter. Csenge Advisory Group now owns 3,776 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $538,000 after buying an additional 965 shares during the period. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 8,555 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.62, for a total transaction of $1,322,774.10. Following the sale, the insider now owns 64,032 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,900,627.84. The trade was a 11.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Jeffrey P. Hank sold 4,000 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.31, for a total value of $585,240.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 12,666 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,853,162.46. The trade was a 24.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 29,858 shares of company stock valued at $4,239,673 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently commented on QLYS. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Qualys from $140.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. TD Cowen boosted their price target on shares of Qualys from $130.00 to $150.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $162.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on shares of Qualys from $135.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, DA Davidson upped their price target on shares of Qualys from $120.00 to $147.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have assigned a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $152.80.

Qualys Price Performance

QLYS opened at $156.79 on Friday. Qualys, Inc. has a 1 year low of $119.17 and a 1 year high of $206.35. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $136.88 and its 200 day simple moving average is $135.32. The firm has a market cap of $5.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.53 and a beta of 0.54.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The software maker reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.33 by $0.23. Qualys had a return on equity of 40.24% and a net margin of 28.72%. The firm had revenue of $153.87 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $150.74 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.24 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 8.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Qualys, Inc. will post 4.34 EPS for the current year.

Qualys Profile

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.