Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” from Brokerages

Shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the fourteen analysts that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nine have given a hold recommendation, two have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $140.4615.

QLYS has been the topic of several research reports. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, November 8th. Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their price target on Qualys from $140.00 to $134.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “underweight” rating and set a $117.00 price objective on shares of Qualys in a research report on Thursday, December 18th. Scotiabank dropped their target price on Qualys from $139.00 to $135.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on Qualys from $117.00 to $113.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 6th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Qualys

In related news, CFO Joo Mi Kim sold 6,799 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $128.46, for a total transaction of $873,399.54. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 88,489 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,367,296.94. The trade was a 7.14% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $133.76, for a total transaction of $668,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 247,800 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,145,728. This represents a 1.98% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 42,227 shares of company stock valued at $5,875,962. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in QLYS. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings 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 during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Qualys by 24.1% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,372,587 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $182,417,000 after buying an additional 266,924 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Qualys by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,256,002 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $168,380,000 after buying an additional 48,877 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of Qualys by 7.0% during the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,156,412 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $153,687,000 after buying an additional 75,397 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Boston Trust Walden Corp raised its holdings in shares of Qualys by 0.7% in the third quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp now owns 1,146,289 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $151,688,000 after buying an additional 8,425 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Qualys Trading Down 6.5%

NASDAQ:QLYS opened at $86.65 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $127.14 and a 200-day moving average price of $132.65. The stock has a market cap of $3.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.93 and a beta of 0.53. Qualys has a 12 month low of $85.14 and a 12 month high of $155.47.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The software maker reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $175.28 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $173.18 million. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.65% and a net margin of 29.64%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.60 EPS. Qualys has set its Q1 2026 guidance at 1.760-1.830 EPS and its FY 2026 guidance at 7.170-7.450 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Qualys will post 3.85 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.