Dealing Bread 🍞

Dealing bread to retail by investing in solid companies. No memes. No day trading. Real wealth creation happens here. Investing journal. Posts are NFA.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Let's get this bread! 🍞

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

@StockMKTNewz Dealing Bread upgrades @StockMKTNewz to a strong follow rating and raises the follower target to 1 million.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

@edgaralandough 2026 has been like that. We will win. 🙏

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Cboe Global Markets - $CBOE

We got what we wanted. Multiple days above the 20D MA. Held above the 100W MA today. Recovery may have started here. I have a 6% share position.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Cboe Global Markets - $CBOE

Watching the 20D MA (red) for rejection or reclaim. I'd like to see at least one daily candle open and close above before entering.

Yes, buying 5% higher is much better than buying now, having it reject, and bagholding.

R:R is better this way.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Dealing Bread (me) upgrades Qualys $QLYS to a Strong Buy rating and raises the price target to $200

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Cboe Global Markets - $CBOE

On the 100W MA for the first time in years. Currently holding the 20M MA as it has for years.

Risk appetite will only increase as more of Gen Z begins investing and restrictions get removed.

Started a 6% position @ $267.77 avg cost.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Cboe Global Markets - $CBOE

Watching the 20D MA (red) for rejection or reclaim. I'd like to see at least one daily candle open and close above before entering.

Yes, buying 5% higher is much better than buying now, having it reject, and bagholding.

R:R is better this way.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

I bought Astera Labs $ALAB in the $50 range in April 2025 and sold at $100.

I definitely should have held longer.

Reminder to let your winners run if there is still part of the thesis left to play out.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

@HyperTechInvest I'm running from most of the energy names. Too much of this crap and debt to hold them. I own a little $SHLS and that's it at the moment.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

AI hardware names and old leaders are taking most of the beating in the portfolio.

Software style names like $QLYS $MITK $TENB and others like $EVLV $FIVN $QCOM have held strong. Some ended the day green.

Relative strength on weakness isn't everything, but it's a good sign.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Qualys $QLYS is up 35% since this post

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Qualys $QLYS

The RIGHT cybersecurity companies can be good catch up trades in my opinion, as many companies will demand more of these services in an AI driven world.

Most companies in this sector have poor/uncompetitive tech stacks or insane evaluations. Others honestly I think will be dinosaurs and won't have enough relevant exposure.

Qualys $QLYS is an exception in my view.

Qualys ($QLYS) stands out in the cybersecurity landscape as a premium, highly disciplined player focused intensely on pre-breach risk, exposure, and compliance management. Unlike vendors attempting to build sprawling, multi-product security operational suites that try to catch live hackers, Qualys is dedicated to building the industry's ultimate preventative "risk fabric."

1. The Core Thesis: "Measure, Communicate, Eliminate"

Qualys’ operational philosophy is built on solving a massive enterprise pain point: vulnerability fatigue. Security teams are drowning in thousands of theoretical "critical" alerts, the vast majority of which have zero statistical probability of actually being weaponized in their specific environment.

Qualys approaches this challenge with three unique pillars:

• Risk Quantification Over Raw Alert Volume: Rather than just scanning and surfacing endless bugs, their platform uses a proprietary TruRisk engine. This aggregates data from dozens of threat intelligence feeds to calculate whether an exploit is actively being leveraged by threat actors or sold on the dark web, prioritizing actual risk.

• Consolidating Pre-Breach Security: Qualys aims to replace disconnected point solutions for asset inventory, configuration management, patch deployment, and cloud-native security (CNAPP)—bringing them into a single, unified data fabric.

• An Industry-Leading Margin Profile: Qualys operates on a structural non-GAAP operating margin of 46% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 47% (Q1 2026 actuals). It is an incredibly efficient free-cash-flow engine. Its land-and-expand sales motion relies on selling baseline scanning, then up-selling modules like automated patching and cloud-posture management to multiply customer spend.

2. The Current Tech Stack: Single-Agent Architecture

Qualys' technical architecture is highly regarded for its lightweight deployment, operating as a true multi-tenant, cloud-native system.

• The Unified Cloud Agent: Where legacy security tools require separate software agents for asset tracking, patch deployment, and vulnerability checking, Qualys relies on a single, lightweight agent deployed across endpoints, hybrid servers, cloud workloads, and containers.

• Inference-Based Assessing: Instead of traditional "tree-based" scanning (which forcefully fires a massive laundry list of exploits down a network to see what sticks, lagging performance), Qualys utilizes an inference engine. It assesses the precise operating state, configuration, and dependencies of a system to mathematically deduce vulnerabilities instantly.

• The Enterprise TruRisk Management (ETM) Platform: Sitting at the cloud layer, this engine ingests telemetry from Qualys' sensors, correlates it with live threat intelligence, and assigns localized risk scores based on real-world business context (e.g., an exposed public-facing server gets scored drastically higher than an identical internal, isolated machine).

• TruRisk Eliminate (Native Remediation): Unlike tools that merely discover vulnerabilities and force IT teams to pivot to a third-party tool (like Microsoft SCCM or Ivanti) to fix them, Qualys builds native patching pipelines directly into its single-agent architecture.

3. Upcoming Catalysts to Watch

Qualys is aggressively leveraging agentic AI and an expanded channel partner strategy to re-accelerate its top-line revenue growth (which tracks in the steady 10% YoY range).

• The Rollout of "Agent Val" (Powered by TruConfirm): A flagship launch within their ETM platform, Agent Val is an agentic AI-led workflow. Instead of guessing if a vulnerability is a false positive, this autonomous agent uses safe, modified, non-destructive payloads to actively test whether a flaw is truly reachable and weaponizable in production. This evidence-based validation has shown to reduce remediation noise by up to 90%, allowing lean IT teams to ignore theoretical threats and focus entirely on proven operational risks.

• AI-Powered Patch Reliability Scores: A primary reason IT administrators resist automated patching is the fear that an automated update will crash a critical production server. To address this, Qualys introduced an AI-powered Patch Reliability Score. By analyzing telemetry across millions of anonymous deployments, the AI accurately predicts the stability of a patch. Convincing risk-averse CISOs to trust automation represents a massive market share land-grab for their patch management business.

• Channel-Led Growth via the mROC Portal: Historically reliant on a direct sales force, Qualys has pivoted hard toward a partner-led model, with channel partners driving over half of their revenue. To accelerate this catalyst, they launched the Managed Risk Operations Center (mROC) portal, allowing Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) to natively monitor and manage TruRisk for dozens of separate enterprise clients at scale from a single multi-tenant pane.

• TotalCloud CNAPP Market Capture: As enterprise cloud budgets consolidate away from expensive, pure-play startup tools, Qualys' TotalCloud platform (recently recognized as a market Leader by top analysts) is perfectly positioned to capture "cloud security posture management" dollars directly from its massive, pre-existing enterprise install base.

The Takeaway

Qualys is fundamentally a premium, hyper-efficient cash cow. Its long-term upside doesn't rely on flashy corporate acquisitions, but on injecting AI automation into its tightly unified, single-agent architecture. By closing the manual gap between finding a critical vulnerability and autonomously fixing it, Qualys continues to deepen its enterprise moat.

Qualys looks great next to competitors like Okta, which trades around 73x earnings, while QLYS sits at 19x. This is low and suburb for this industry. Revenue did +63% over the past 4 years, from 410M to 670M. Net income has tripled in that same time span. That's real expansion we can see.

Qualys is trading at a 10x P/OCF, it's lowest ever recorded. This is a very misunderstood cyber security and threat management business.

Technically speaking, we have reclaimed all moving averages on the daily, and have reclaimed the 100 day on the monthly as of now in June 2026. Not out of the woods yet technically, but we are seeing great strength on green days, and relative strength on red days. Much more favorable price action relative to peers.

Combined with the growth rate, margins, and financial evaluation, I'm inclined to add this to the portfolio. I've opened a 7% all share position at a $118.95 average cost.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Watchlist - $CBOE Global Markets

I don't own any at the moment, but this could be a good case to long $CBOE as it's at a discount. On the 100W MA for the first time in years.

Risk appetite will only increase as more of Gen Z begins investing and restrictions get removed.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

Retail risk appetite is at record levels:

0DTE options contracts now account for a record 48% of total retail options volume.

This percentage has more than TRIPLED over the last 5 years.

Furthermore, 0DTE options reflected a record 30% of total US options volume in May.

By comparison, the 2022 high was ~18% while the average over the last 5 years is ~21%.

As a result, the average options contract now expires in under 3 days.

Retail demand for short-term options has never been higher.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

@KobeissiLetter This will only go higher as more of Gen Z starts investing and restrictions get removed

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

@ZaStocks It's still so early for AI

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

$QCOM makes nearly 4x more net income than $AMD and is only 1/4 the market cap.

The areas of tech Qualcomm will try to break into improves net income further.

The next two years can be powerful.
Do with this info as you please.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

@unusual_whales "You will own nothing and be happy"

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

TD Garden and Evolv $EVLV agree to upgrade all concealed weapons screening systems to Gen2 hardware.

Evolv eXpedite bag scanners to be added across venue entry points as well.

TD Garden also designated Evolv as its "Official Fan Screening Partner" for the future.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Evolv $EVLV has had multiple hospital deals in June expanding their arsenal and a $10M deal with Detroit PSCD to secure 37 schools. Phillies upgraded to Gen2.

As $EVLV CEO said on 6/9, weapons detection will be standard everywhere.

This is just the start of a good growth story.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

@amitisinvesting Hard to be bearish when the president is long on the market and even pumping it himself.

Take advantage.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Dealing Bread (me) upgrades Qualcomm $QCOM to a Strong Buy rating and raises the price target to $300.

[Dealing Bread 🍞 @DealingBread]

Qualys $QLYS

Daily and weekly charts are starting to shape up on the latest portfolio addition.

Above all moving averages on the daily. MA's are close together and pointing up. That's what we want to see.