Ieq Capital LLC Invests $1.02 Million in Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

Ieq Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm purchased 7,429 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $1,021,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in Qualys in the second quarter valued at about $792,316,000. First Trust Advisors LP increased 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 acquiring an additional 266,924 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position 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 acquiring an additional 48,877 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 7.0% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,156,412 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $153,687,000 after acquiring an additional 75,397 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Qualys by 46.9% in 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 during the period. 99.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on QLYS. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Qualys from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Monday. Robert W. Baird set a $160.00 price target on Qualys in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. Scotiabank lifted their price objective on Qualys from $190.00 to $220.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Qualys from $139.00 to $150.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $170.53.

Insider Activity

In other Qualys news, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 30,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $135.00, for a total transaction of $4,050,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 196,686 shares in the company, valued at $26,552,610. The trade was a 13.23% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Wendy Pfeiffer sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $158.19, for a total transaction of $79,095.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 12,210 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,931,499.90. This represents a 3.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 72,845 shares of company stock worth $9,377,536 in the last ninety days. 0.72% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Qualys Price Performance

QLYS opened at $188.59 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $156.38 and a 200 day moving average price of $117.42. Qualys, Inc. has a 12 month low of $74.51 and a 12 month high of $201.54. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.63 and a beta of 0.60.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last posted 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. The company had revenue of $182.18 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $178.57 million. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.52% and a net margin of 29.38%.Qualys’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.68 EPS. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.740-7.880 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.910-1.980 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.85 earnings per share for the current 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.