Empowered Funds LLC Acquires Shares of 7,118 Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

Key Points

• Empowered Funds LLC acquired 7,118 Qualys shares worth approximately $979,000 during the second quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds collectively own 99.31% of the company.
• Qualys exceeded quarterly expectations, reporting $1.98 in earnings per share versus the $1.78 consensus estimate and $182.18 million in revenue, up 11.1% year over year.
• Analysts maintain a consensus “Hold” rating with a $170.53 target price, while Qualys shares opened at $171.65. Recent insider activity has been negative, with executives selling shares under pre-arranged trading plans.

Empowered Funds LLC bought a new position in shares of Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS - Free Report) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 7,118 shares of the software maker's stock, valued at approximately $979,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Root Financial Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Qualys by 206.2% during the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 297 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares during the period. Strive Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Qualys in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its stake in Qualys by 204.3% in the fourth quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 213 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 143 shares in the last quarter. Kilter Group LLC bought a new stake in Qualys during the second quarter worth about $31,000. Finally, Employees Retirement System of Texas acquired a new stake in Qualys during the fourth quarter worth about $43,000. 99.31% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have commented on QLYS. Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Qualys from $100.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of Qualys from $145.00 to $170.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Qualys from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on Qualys from $150.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded Qualys from a "hold (c)" rating to a "hold (c+)" rating in a research note on Monday, August 24th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $170.53.

Qualys Trading Down 1.5%

Qualys stock opened at $171.65 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $163.98 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $120.27. Qualys, Inc. has a 12 month low of $74.51 and a 12 month high of $201.54. The company has a market capitalization of $5.94 billion, a PE ratio of 29.70 and a beta of 0.62.

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 business had revenue of $182.18 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $178.57 million. Qualys had a net margin of 29.38% and a return on equity of 37.52%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business 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. As a group, analysts predict that Qualys, Inc. will post 5.85 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Sumedh Thakar sold 30,000 shares of Qualys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.00, for a total value of $4,050,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 196,686 shares of the company's stock, valued at $26,552,610. The trade was a 13.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Joo Mi Kim sold 1,627 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.04, for a total value of $248,996.08. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 75,743 shares in the company, valued at $11,591,708.72. The trade was a 2.10% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 58,614 shares of company stock valued at $7,747,968 over the last three months. 0.72% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.

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