California Public Employees Retirement System Sells 21,482 Shares of Qualys, Inc. $QLYS

California Public Employees Retirement System cut its position in Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ:QLYS) by 22.1% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 75,880 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 21,482 shares during the quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Qualys were worth $6,666,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in QLYS. First Trust Advisors LP grew its holdings 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 buying an additional 266,924 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Qualys by 4.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,256,002 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $168,380,000 after acquiring an additional 48,877 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in Qualys by 7.0% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,156,412 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $153,687,000 after acquiring an additional 75,397 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position 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 valued at $144,133,000 after acquiring an additional 323,324 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in Qualys by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 717,381 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $95,344,000 after purchasing an additional 21,649 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 99.31% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have commented on the company. Piper Sandler reduced their target price on Qualys from $135.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Wedbush lowered their price target on Qualys from $155.00 to $125.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Scotiabank raised Qualys from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $100.00 to $190.00 in a research report on Monday, July 6th. William Blair downgraded Qualys from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 28th. Finally, Royal Bank Of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $145.00 target price on shares of Qualys in a research report on Thursday, July 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have issued a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $141.80.

Qualys Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:QLYS opened at $137.48 on Monday. Qualys, Inc. has a 1-year low of $74.51 and a 1-year high of $167.86. The company has a market capitalization of $4.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.68 and a beta of 0.61. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $125.13 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $110.44.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Wendy Pfeiffer sold 500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.55, for a total value of $55,275.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 12,710 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,405,090.50. This represents a 3.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at 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 Qualys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.00, for a total value of $155,000.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 63,571 shares in the company, valued at $9,853,505. This trade 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 have sold a total of 73,846 shares of company stock worth $9,239,073 in the last three months. 0.72% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Qualys Profile

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.