Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Reaches New 12-Month High After Analyst Upgrade

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) hit a new 52-week high during trading on Monday after Scotiabank upgraded the stock from a sector perform rating to a sector outperform rating. Scotiabank now has a $190.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $100.00. Qualys traded as high as $155.97 and last traded at $158.06, with a volume of 69387 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $148.12.

QLYS has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Qualys from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. TD Cowen reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Qualys in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Qualys from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $87.00 to $139.00 in a research note on Tuesday, June 30th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Qualys from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 2nd. Finally, Truist Financial reduced their target price on Qualys from $120.00 to $85.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $132.29.

Insider Activity at Qualys

In other news, CEO Sumedh S. Thakar sold 30,000 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 196,686 shares in the company, valued at $26,552,610. The trade was a 13.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Jeffrey P. Hank sold 470 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $108.88, for a total transaction of $51,173.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 16,046 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,747,088.48. This represents a 2.85% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 71,881 shares of company stock worth $8,945,654 over the last three months. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Qualys

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in QLYS. First Trust Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Qualys by 24.1% in 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 purchasing an additional 266,924 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Qualys by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,256,002 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $168,380,000 after buying an additional 48,877 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in Qualys by 7.0% during the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,156,412 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $153,687,000 after buying an additional 75,397 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Qualys by 46.9% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,012,100 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $144,133,000 after buying an additional 323,324 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fundsmith LLP boosted its stake in Qualys by 21.2% in the 3rd quarter. Fundsmith LLP now owns 870,859 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $115,241,000 after buying an additional 152,257 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Qualys Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $5.58 billion, a PE ratio of 28.42 and a beta of 0.61. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $106.09 and a 200 day simple moving average of $108.92.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 5th. The software maker reported $1.95 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.81 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $175.64 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $173.63 million. Qualys had a net margin of 29.41% and a return on equity of 37.15%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.67 EPS. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.440-7.650 EPS and its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-1.800 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.47 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.