Willis Investment Counsel Purchases 9,264 Shares of Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

Willis Investment Counsel increased its position in Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 39.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 32,624 shares of the software maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 9,264 shares during the period. Willis Investment Counsel owned approximately 0.09% of Qualys worth $4,336,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of QLYS. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake 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 acquiring an additional 123,962 shares in the last quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp lifted its stake in Qualys by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Boston Trust Walden Corp now owns 1,146,289 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $151,688,000 after acquiring an additional 8,425 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in Qualys by 2.8% during the 3rd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,081,015 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $143,051,000 after acquiring an additional 29,342 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its stake 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 acquiring an additional 323,324 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fundsmith LLP lifted its stake in Qualys by 21.2% during the 3rd quarter. Fundsmith LLP now owns 870,859 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $115,241,000 after acquiring an additional 152,257 shares in the last quarter. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO Joo Mi Kim sold 6,799 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.46, for a total value of $873,399.54. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 88,489 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,367,296.94. This trade represents a 7.14% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 5,000 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $133.76, for a total value of $668,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 247,800 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,145,728. This trade represents a 1.98% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 16,479 shares of company stock valued at $2,167,471. 0.88% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

QLYS has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. DA Davidson dropped their price objective on Qualys from $135.00 to $125.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on Qualys from $117.00 to $113.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Royal Bank Of Canada dropped their price objective 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. Truist Financial restated a “hold” rating and set a $120.00 price objective (down from $130.00) on shares of Qualys in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on shares of Qualys in a research note on Friday, February 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have given a Buy rating, nine have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $140.46.

Qualys Price Performance

NASDAQ QLYS opened at $87.36 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.06 and a beta of 0.62. Qualys, Inc. has a one year low of $82.06 and a one year high of $155.47. The business’s fifty day moving average is $100.21 and its 200-day moving average is $123.75.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 5th. The software maker reported $1.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $175.28 million for 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 business’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous 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. Research analysts expect that Qualys, Inc. 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.