Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) Stock Price Down 3.9% – Time to Sell?

Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) shares traded down 3.9% during trading on Friday . The company traded as low as $154.85 and last traded at $155.3260. Approximately 73,788 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 90% from the average session volume of 749,639 shares. The stock had previously closed at $161.57.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on QLYS shares. Scotiabank upped their target price on Qualys from $190.00 to $220.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Qualys from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Monday, August 24th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Qualys from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 8th. Piper Sandler upped their price target on shares of Qualys from $100.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of Qualys from $150.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Qualys presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $173.87.

Qualys Stock Down 5.6%

The stock has a market cap of $5.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.37 and a beta of 0.62. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $166.31 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $122.28.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.98 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.78 by $0.20. Qualys had a return on equity of 37.52% and a net margin of 29.38%.The company had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $178.57 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.68 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Qualys has set its FY 2026 guidance at 7.740-7.880 EPS and its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.910-1.980 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.85 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Qualys news, CEO Sumedh Thakar sold 30,000 shares of the company’s 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,552,610. This represents a 13.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Bruce K. Posey sold 1,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.00, for a total transaction of $155,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 63,571 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,853,505. This represents a 1.55% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 57,205 shares of company stock worth $7,592,800 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.72% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of QLYS. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Qualys in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $792,316,000. California State Teachers Retirement System lifted its stake in Qualys by 13,255.9% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 5,651,801 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $777,066,000 after acquiring an additional 5,609,484 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new stake in Qualys in the second quarter worth approximately $197,624,000. First Trust Advisors LP grew its position in Qualys by 24.1% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,372,587 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $182,417,000 after acquiring an additional 266,924 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Qualys by 4.0% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,256,002 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $168,380,000 after purchasing an additional 48,877 shares during the last quarter. 99.31% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Qualys Company Profile

Qualys, Inc is a cloud-based security and compliance company that helps organizations identify, assess and manage cyber risk across their information technology environments. Its platform is designed to provide visibility into assets, vulnerabilities, configurations and compliance requirements across networks, endpoints, applications and cloud infrastructure.

The company’s offerings include vulnerability management, asset inventory, policy compliance, cloud security, web application security and endpoint detection and response.