NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 14:34 ET — Regular session
- Rigetti Computing shares were up about 0.3% in afternoon trading after a choppy session range.
- Quantum peers IonQ and D-Wave Quantum traded higher, while the broader market held near flat.
Rigetti Computing shares edged up 0.3% to $22.34 on Tuesday afternoon, after swinging about 3% between the day’s high and low. IonQ rose 1.2% and D-Wave Quantum gained 1.6%.
The muted move matters because quantum-computing stocks have become a high-beta pocket of the market, prone to sudden swings when liquidity thins and rate expectations shift. With the calendar turning, traders are re-pricing how much room the Federal Reserve has to ease in 2026.
U.S. stocks were subdued in holiday-thin trading, with investors rotating within technology after a late-year run-up, Reuters reported. “It’s just a healthy rebalancing of allocations more so than an emotionally driven sell-off,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide. Reuters
The Fed’s December meeting minutes released Tuesday underscored how split policymakers were over cutting rates, as they weighed cooling job growth against stubborn inflation. The central bank lowered its benchmark overnight rate to a 3.5% to 3.75% range in December, and investors now have more detail on the arguments for pausing or cutting again.
That backdrop is closely tied to Rigetti and other early-stage technology shares, which tend to draw in traders when borrowing costs are falling and risk appetite is strong. When investors start to expect fewer or later cuts, the same stocks can give back gains quickly.
Rigetti is a full-stack quantum computing company that runs quantum computers over the cloud and also sells quantum processing units and related services, according to its Reuters profile. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can behave differently from classical bits and may help on certain complex calculations.
The sector has been volatile into the final days of the year, with profit-taking and holiday-depressed institutional volume amplifying day-to-day moves, Investor’s Business Daily reported.
For Rigetti, that means macro headlines can overwhelm company specifics on quiet news days. Traders often lump the stock into a “pure-play quantum” basket, so sympathy moves in IonQ and D-Wave can drive intraday momentum.
Investors are also looking ahead to early-January U.S. data that could reset rate expectations, including December jobs and inflation reports, and the Fed’s next policy meeting later in January.
On the company calendar, the next earnings report is expected in early March, though Rigetti has not confirmed a date. Zacks’ earnings calendar lists March 4, 2026 as the expected release.
When results do arrive, traders will be watching for any update on customer adoption, the pace of contract revenue, and cash burn — the practical markers that can cut through the long-dated promise of quantum computing.
For now, Rigetti’s modest gain on Tuesday highlights a familiar pattern: the stock can move sharply within the day even when it finishes little changed, as year-end positioning and rate-path debates steer speculative tech.
