Quantum computing stocks cooled off into the close on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, after one of the most explosive years the niche has ever seen. Volatility remains intense, but today’s session looked more like a breather than a crash as traders digested fresh analyst calls, hedge‑fund filings, earnings updates and even new leveraged ETFs tied directly to the quantum theme. TechStock²
As of late trading after the U.S. closing bell (around 4:25 p.m. ET):
- IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) was near $54.44, essentially flat on the day (about +0.2%).
- D‑Wave Quantum (NYSE: QBTS) hovered around $28.33, down about 0.4%.
- Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) traded near $28.22, off roughly 0.2%.
- Quantum Computing Inc. (NASDAQ: QUBT) closed around $13.21, up about 1.4%.
- Arqit Quantum (NASDAQ: ARQQ) sat near $29.63, down about 0.3%.
For context, the S&P 500 slipped about 0.2% and the Nasdaq 100 was roughly flat, as investors waited on a closely watched Federal Reserve decision later this week. [1]
Below is a breakdown of what moved the main quantum names today — and what Wall Street is forecasting next.
IonQ (IONQ): Pure‑Play Leader Keeps the Spotlight
IonQ remains the poster child for pure‑play quantum computing. A new Motley Fool piece today, “1 Quantum Computing Stock That Should Be on Every Investor’s Holiday List,” again crowned IonQ as the current pure‑play leader in the sector and highlighted how dramatically the stock has run: more than 900% gains over the past three years. [2]
Recent analysis focuses on three main themes:
1. Explosive growth, tiny base
- IonQ’s Q3 2025 revenue jumped about 222% year over year, beating the high end of guidance by roughly 37%. [3]
- Zacks notes that the company achieved record 99.99% two‑qubit gate fidelity and hit its “#AQ 64” performance target ahead of schedule, meaning its “Tempo” system can handle much larger problem sizes than many commercial rivals. [4]
2. Massive cash war chest
- After a roughly $2 billion equity raise, IonQ is estimated to be sitting on around $3.5 billion in net cash, giving it unusual firepower for R&D, acquisitions and cloud partnerships. TechStock²+1
3. Valuation and 2026 forecasts
- Zacks currently rates IonQ a Rank #3 (Hold) but models 2026 earnings growth of roughly 66% on about 69% sales growth, underscoring how much future success is already priced into the stock. [5]
- Several recent articles frame IonQ as both a potential “millionaire‑maker” and a candidate for sharp downside if the broader quantum “mini‑bubble” deflates. [6]
Takeaway: IonQ still looks like the flagship pure‑play quantum stock, with real technological milestones and rapidly rising revenue — but also a valuation that assumes many years of near‑flawless execution.
D‑Wave Quantum (QBTS): Fresh “Buy” Rating and Lofty Targets
D‑Wave spent much of 2025 trying to convince Wall Street that quantum annealing has real commercial use today, not just in the distant future. It got a boost this morning when Evercore ISI reportedly initiated coverage with a bullish rating and a $44 price target, according to a 24/7 Wall St. summary. [7]
Key points on D‑Wave today:
- Price action: Shares ended slightly lower after a huge year‑to‑date rally (over 200%+ in 2025), with traders treating today more as consolidation. TechStock²
- Fundamentals:
- D‑Wave’s Advantage2 annealing system, a 4,400+ qubit machine, is now generally available and has helped drive Q3 revenue to about $3.7 million, up 100% year over year, per Zacks’ analyst blog. [8]
- The company recently signed a €10 million deal for a 50%-capacity system with a European quantum alliance and deployed Advantage2 at a U.S. defense subcontractor, signalling real‑world demand in optimization and defense workloads. [9]
- Valuation concerns:
- A CoinCentral report, which dug into Ken Griffin’s Citadel stake in D‑Wave and Rigetti, notes that D‑Wave trades at roughly 325× sales, with Wall Street still projecting around 48% median upside over the next year. [10]
Takeaway: D‑Wave now has a major Wall Street firm on its side and triple‑digit revenue growth. But its valuation and reliance on a still‑early customer base make it extremely sensitive to any slowdown in contracts or hype.
Rigetti Computing (RGTI): Hedge‑Fund Validation Meets Execution Risk
Rigetti has been one of 2025’s most dramatic stories. Zacks flagged it this morning as a “trending stock” and laid out a nuanced view. [11]
1. Q3 stumble and DARPA miss
- Zacks’ coverage points out that Rigetti’s latest quarter showed weaker‑than‑expected revenue, plus a miss on a key DARPA “Phase B” milestone, raising questions about how quickly its technology roadmap can translate into steady commercial business. [12]
- Consensus forecasts still call for Rigetti to narrow losses in 2025 and move toward profitability longer term, but Zacks currently rates it only a Rank #3 (Hold) and gives it an “F” on value, implying a premium valuation versus peers. [13]
2. Ken Griffin’s Citadel steps in
- A separate article on CoinCentral today revealed that Citadel Advisors bought about 51,700 Rigetti shares and 122,600 D‑Wave shares in Q3 2025. [14]
- The same piece highlights just how extreme the move has been: Rigetti stock is up roughly 3,750% since January 2023, while D‑Wave has surged about 1,770% since January 2024. [15]
3. Price targets vs. reality
- Wall Street’s median price target around $40 implies about 42% upside from recent prices, with the most bullish target pointing to potential gains above 80%. [16]
- But analysts and commentators repeatedly stress that Rigetti trades at roughly 1,080× sales, far beyond even highly valued AI names, leaving little margin for error. [17]
Takeaway: Rigetti is the quintessential high‑beta quantum trade: adored by some hedge funds and retail traders, but carrying sky‑high expectations and meaningful execution risk.
Arqit Quantum (ARQQ): Quantum‑Safe Encryption with Tiny Revenue
Unlike IonQ, Rigetti and D‑Wave, Arqit positions itself as a quantum‑safe encryption company, selling cryptographic tools designed to protect networks against future quantum attacks.
This morning, Arqit released its fiscal 2025 results: [18]
- FY 2025 revenue: $530,000, in line with earlier guidance.
- Revenue was heavily back‑loaded: $463,000 in the second half vs. $67,000 in the first, with income coming from seven contracts, including two multi‑year deals.
- Executed contracts are expected to generate about $1.2 million in FY 2026 revenue, providing a baseline before new deals are signed.
- Operating costs averaged around $2.5 million per month, and Arqit ended the year with about $36.9 million in cash and equivalents.
Strategically:
- Arqit is integrating the “Encryption Intelligence” analytics products it acquired from Ampliphae with its own symmetric key agreement platform (SKA‑Platform and NetworkSecure), pitching an end‑to‑end solution to help enterprises identify weak cryptography and migrate toward post‑quantum secure architectures. [19]
Analyst roundups today describe Arqit as a “Hold”: they like the technology and positioning but worry about the tiny revenue base and persistent cash burn, even as telecom and government interest picks up. TechStock²
Takeaway: Arqit is a play on quantum‑safe security rather than quantum processors. The story is early and highly speculative, but it’s increasingly part of how investors get exposure to the broader “quantum plus cybersecurity” theme.
Quantum Computing Inc. (QUBT): Speculation Magnet With New Capital
QUBT once again drew attention today, both as a high‑beta satellite trade on quantum and as a company trying to prove its fundamentals can catch up with its stock chart.
1. Zacks: “New Capital Positions QUBT for Major Rebound”
A fresh Zacks note this afternoon argues that QUBT’s huge capital raise — over $1.5 billion via share issuance — has dramatically strengthened its balance sheet, even though the dilution helped drive a double‑digit share price drop in recent months. [20]
The report highlighted:
- Q3 2025 revenue rising from $101,000 to $384,000, with gross margin expanding from 9% to 33%.
- A swing to $2.4 million in net income versus a $5.7 million loss a year earlier, helped by interest income on the enlarged cash balance and derivative mark‑to‑market gains. [21]
- The company’s room‑temperature photonic architecture and the ramp‑up of its Fab 1 and planned Fab 2 manufacturing facilities, which Zacks argues could support scalable production if demand materializes. [22]
Zacks rates QUBT a Rank #2 (Buy) and notes that the stock trades about 84% below its average price target, implying significant upside if execution continues to improve. [23]
2. 24/7 Wall St: “A 494% Gain Built on Almost Nothing”
That bullish take contrasts sharply with a widely read 24/7 Wall St article from the weekend, which pointed out that a $1,000 investment in QUBT about a year ago would now be worth nearly $6,000 — a roughly 494% gain — even though the company has generated just $546,000 in trailing revenue. [24]
The same piece notes:
- QUBT sports an operating margin near –2,700%, effectively losing about $27 for every $1 of revenue.
- Its price‑to‑sales ratio around 5,270× implies it would need to grow revenue more than 5,000‑fold just to justify a 1× sales multiple. [25]
Takeaway: QUBT is a classic speculative name: Zacks sees improving fundamentals and a huge discount to analyst targets, while other observers call it “thematic gambling” fueled by retail enthusiasm rather than fundamentals. [26]
Big‑Tech and the Quantum Macro Story
Today’s Zacks Analyst Blog on IBM, Amazon, Google, IonQ and D‑Wave underscored that quantum is no longer just a story about small caps:
- IBM has rolled out a new IBM Quantum data center and a multi‑year roadmap toward fault‑tolerant systems.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) unveiled its “Ocelot” quantum chip, aiming to cut error‑correction overhead by up to 90%, which could be critical for making quantum hardware practical.
- Honeywell’s Quantinuum raised about $600 million at nearly a $10 billion valuation, backed in part by a DARPA benchmarking contract.
- Google’s “Willow” chip demonstrated a verified quantum advantage on a molecular‑simulation task, reportedly running around 13,000× faster than classical supercomputers for that workload. [27]
Zacks concludes that 2025 has shifted investor expectations from “someday science experiment” toward “early commercialization,” but stresses that fault‑tolerant, large‑scale systems are still years away — and that pure‑play quantum stocks remain high‑risk, high‑reward bets that should typically represent small, diversified allocations in a portfolio. [28]
Leverage Arrives: QPUX and IONZ Turn Quantum into a Trader’s Playground
One of the biggest structural stories around quantum stocks this year is the rise of single‑theme leveraged ETFs and aggressive options trading.
QPUX: 2× Daily Long “Pure Quantum” ETF
- The Defiance 2X Daily Long Pure Quantum ETF (NASDAQ: QPUX) launched in August and seeks to deliver +200% of the daily performance of an actively managed basket of pure‑play quantum companies. [29]
- According to Defiance’s fund page, QPUX currently gains its exposure via swaps tied to IonQ, Rigetti, D‑Wave and Quantum Computing Inc., effectively leveraging the same four names retail traders already favor most. [30]
IONZ: 2× Daily Short IonQ ETF Reverse Split Effective Today
- On the short side, the Defiance Daily Target 2X Short IONQ ETF (IONZ) conducted a 1‑for‑6 reverse stock split effective before today’s market open, according to Nasdaq Trader and OCC notices. [31]
- The reverse split doesn’t change the fund’s strategy — delivering –200% of IonQ’s daily move — but it consolidates shares and lifts the trading price, making it more appealing to some traders.
Together with heavy options volume in IONQ, RGTI and QBTS, these products mean that leveraged long and short bets can now be made with a single click, amplifying both rallies and sell‑offs across the group. TechStock²
Risk vs. Reward: What Today’s Action Signals for Quantum Investors
Putting the day’s news together, several themes emerge:
- The technology is advancing, but timelines are still long.
Big‑tech milestones (IBM’s data center, AWS’s Ocelot chip, Google’s Willow experiment) and growing government and enterprise contracts show real progress. But analysts repeatedly emphasize that fully fault‑tolerant systems with millions of logical qubits are still years away, so returns may be lumpy and uneven. [32] - Valuations are extremely stretched.
Rigetti at around 1,000× sales, D‑Wave at more than 300× sales, and QUBT at over 5,000× sales illustrate how much optimism is baked in — and how quickly these stocks could rerate if sentiment turns. [33] - Volatility is structural, not temporary.
Leveraged ETFs like QPUX and IONZ, large options flows and high‑profile insider and institutional trades (such as D‑Wave’s CFO selling into strength and Citadel’s new stakes in Rigetti and D‑Wave) mean double‑digit daily moves are likely to remain common. TechStock²+1 - Execution risk is stock‑specific.
Rigetti’s DARPA setback, Arqit’s tiny revenue vs. high fixed costs, and QUBT’s scorching rally atop minimal sales all show that not every quantum name will justify its valuation — and some may ultimately fail. [34] - A “barbell” approach is gaining traction.
Many analysts now suggest that if investors want quantum exposure at all, they consider small speculative positions in pure‑plays (IONQ, RGTI, QBTS, ARQQ, QUBT) on one side, paired with larger holdings in big‑tech platforms (IBM, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft) that are integrating quantum into broader cloud and AI ecosystems. [35]
Practical Notes and Disclaimer
- Today’s prices and moves are based on late‑day trading data from December 9, 2025 and may differ slightly from final closing or after‑hours levels. Always check real‑time quotes before making any trading decisions.
- Quantum stocks and the leveraged ETFs tied to them can move 10–20% or more in a single session. They are generally considered appropriate only for experienced investors and very small position sizes relative to a diversified portfolio. [36]
This article is for information and news purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Quantum‑related equities, options and leveraged products are highly speculative and can result in rapid and substantial losses. Consider consulting a qualified financial adviser and doing your own, independent research before investing.
References
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