Rigetti Computing (RGTI) Stock Weekend Update: Why Shares Dropped Friday, What the Latest Headlines Say, and What to Watch Before Monday’s Open

NEW YORK, Dec. 28, 2025, 1:30 a.m. ET — Market closed (Weekend)

Rigetti Computing, Inc. (NASDAQ: RGTI) stock heads into the final Monday session of 2025 after a sharp Friday pullback that reminded investors—again—that quantum-computing pure plays can move like rockets on the way up and trapdoors on the way down.

RGTI last changed hands around $22.38 after Friday’s slide, down about 8.7% on the day, with trading roughly between $22.33 and $24.51 and volume near 28.3 million shares—well below the stock’s recent average volume, according to market data and widely circulated trading recaps. ^[1]

With U.S. markets closed for the weekend, there’s no fresh price discovery until Monday’s session, which means the next move will be shaped by a familiar cocktail: thin year-end liquidity, retail flows, and the latest analyst takes on whether Rigetti’s technology roadmap justifies a valuation that still makes fundamental investors squint.

What happened to Rigetti stock on Friday

Multiple market summaries converged on the same headline: RGTI’s Friday decline looked like a momentum reset, not a company-specific shock.

Benzinga’s Henry Khederian described the move as a reversal after a surge earlier in the week, framing it in the context of a “Santa Rally” rotation into high-beta names—especially the quantum cohort—at a time when institutional desks can be lighter into year-end. ^[2]

MarketBeat’s recap was more mechanical: shares fell about 8.7% to roughly $22.38, touched an intraday low near $22.33, and did so on volume that was materially below the stock’s typical pace—an important detail when assessing whether the selling was broad, urgent, and institutional, or more episodic and flow-driven. ^[3]

In other words: the tape looked like profit-taking + thinner liquidity, not an earnings bomb or a sudden change in Rigetti’s published roadmap.

The most important RGTI headlines from the last 24–48 hours

Even though markets are closed right now, the news cycle around RGTI didn’t sleep much. The past two days’ most-circulated stories fell into three buckets:

1) “Momentum cooled” coverage

Benzinga’s report focused on how retail sentiment, social-media attention, and holiday-week trading conditions can exaggerate moves in smaller, high-volatility stocks like Rigetti. ^[4]

MarketBeat likewise centered on Friday’s drop and the stock’s trading stats (range, volume, and the shift versus average activity). ^[5]

2) “Institutions are buying (some of them)” narratives

A separate MarketBeat item highlighted a Form 13F-based position change: Osaic Holdings increased its Rigetti stake (per MarketBeat’s summary) and ended the quarter with 260,307 shares, valued at about $3.09 million at quarter-end in that filing recap. ^[6]

The Motley Fool’s Lyle Daly also leaned into the institutional-interest angle, writing that asset managers and hedge funds bought Rigetti stock in 2025—while also emphasizing that the company has posted heavy losses alongside the share-price surge. ^[7]

3) “Bull case vs. bear case for 2026” opinion pieces

On the bullish side, a Nasdaq-hosted commentary from The Motley Fool’s Rick Orford argued the company’s progress on chiplet-based architectures and partnerships could leave room for meaningful upside if execution improves. ^[8]

On the caution side, The Motley Fool’s coverage also underscored valuation risk—arguing Rigetti trades at an extremely elevated price-to-sales multiple relative to mega-cap tech names, even as revenue has been small and uneven. ^[9]

Taken together, the last 48 hours of headlines reflect a market that’s still fascinated by the quantum theme, but increasingly split on whether RGTI’s near-term trading is being driven more by technology progress or by positioning and narrative momentum.

Analyst forecasts: price targets are high, but the “why” differs

The cleanest way to describe Wall Street’s stance on Rigetti right now: bullish targets exist, but conviction is not uniform—and the debate is mostly about execution and timelines.

Consensus view (one snapshot)

MarketBeat’s consolidated view (based on nine analysts in its dataset) shows an average 12-month price target of $31.22, with targets ranging from $15 on the low end to $50 on the high end. ^[10]

That wide spread is the tell. In “normal” stocks, targets cluster. In “build-the-future” stocks, targets fan out—because you’re essentially modeling competing futures.

The optimistic camp: Mizuho’s Vijay Rakesh

In mid-December coverage, Investing.com reported that Mizuho initiated Rigetti with an Outperform rating and a $50 price target, citing scaling expectations (150+ qubits by end of 2026; 1,000+ by end of 2027) and highlighting a strong liquidity position (described as more than $450 million in cash, equivalents, and investments in that report). ^[11]

TipRanks similarly reported a bullish initiation from Vijay Rakesh at Mizuho, with the same $50 target, and emphasized the roadmap and balance-sheet runway as core parts of the thesis. ^[12]

The cautious camp: Jefferies’ Kevin Garrigan

TipRanks reported that Jefferies analyst Kevin Garrigan initiated coverage with a Hold rating and a $30 price target, citing execution concerns—especially the credibility damage from roadmap delays—and noting that Rigetti’s revenue mix has leaned heavily toward government customers, which can reduce visibility. ^[13]

A middle bullish view: Wedbush’s Antoine Legault

In the context of this week’s trading, Benzinga pointed to Wedbush initiating coverage with an Outperform rating and a $35 price target, highlighting Rigetti’s chiplets and vertically integrated approach as differentiators. ^[14]

What Rigetti itself has said: roadmap milestones and financial runway

For investors trying to separate “story stock” energy from company-reported substance, Rigetti’s most recent quarterly update remains a key anchor.

In its Q3 2025 results press release (furnished via SEC filing), Rigetti reported $1.9 million in Q3 revenue and an operating loss of $20.5 million, along with a GAAP net loss figure that included major non-cash items. The company also reported $558.9 million in cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale investments as of Sept. 30, 2025, and stated that by Nov. 6, 2025 that total was approximately $600.0 million, aided by warrant exercises. ^[15]

On technology milestones, the same release said Rigetti remained on track to deliver a 100+ qubit chiplet-based system with an anticipated 99.5% median two-qubit gate fidelity by end of 2025, and outlined expectations for 150+ qubits by around end of 2026 (99.7%) and 1,000+ qubits by around end of 2027 (99.8%). ^[16]

Management commentary in that release also emphasized “strong momentum” in demand for on‑premises systems and highlighted collaborations tied to networking and hybrid quantum-classical efforts. ^[17]

The commercial section included notable reference points that analysts frequently use in their models: purchase orders totaling about $5.7 million for two 9-qubit Novera systems (with expected delivery in the first half of 2026) and a $5.8 million AFRL contract tied to superconducting quantum networking work. ^[18]

The two risks the market keeps repricing: valuation and positioning

No matter how compelling the long-term quantum story is, RGTI trading keeps snapping back to two present-tense realities:

1) Valuation is doing a lot of heavy lifting

The Motley Fool’s take on the stock’s valuation was blunt: it argued Rigetti trades at over 1,000x trailing sales and contrasted that with far lower price-to-sales multiples for mature tech leaders—highlighting how much future success is already priced into the shares. ^[19]

That doesn’t make the stock “wrong.” It makes it fragile: when expectations are lofty, even small disappointments (or just a change in market mood) can cause sharp repricing.

2) Short interest is elevated enough to amplify volatility

MarketBeat’s short-interest page showed that as of Dec. 15, 2025, Rigetti had about 41.25 million shares sold short—about 12.5% of the public float—with a low days-to-cover figure due to high trading volume. ^[20]

In practical terms: a stock with meaningful short interest can see fast squeezes on bullish catalysts—but it can also see hard downdrafts when momentum breaks and longs rush for the same exit.

What investors should know before the next session

Because the market is closed right now, the most useful prep for Monday is less about “predicting” and more about avoiding preventable mistakes in a thin, jumpy tape.

Expect gaps and air pockets

Benzinga explicitly flagged the holiday-period dynamic: lower participation can let retail-driven sentiment swing smaller-cap names more aggressively than normal. ^[21]

If you trade RGTI, treat Monday morning like a different sport than a mid-October Wednesday. The ball bounces weird.

Watch Friday’s key levels as the first reference points

Friday established a clean set of near-term markers: the intraday low around $22.33 and the upper range near $24.51. ^[22]

Those levels often become the first “where do we fight?” zones once premarket liquidity turns into regular-session volume.

Know what the next major scheduled catalyst is

TipRanks lists Rigetti’s next earnings report date as March 5, 2026 (before open, confirmed), with a consensus EPS forecast shown on that page. ^[23]

That’s not “tomorrow,” but for a narrative-driven stock, the calendar matters: traders frequently position weeks in advance around earnings, guidance, and roadmap updates.

Don’t expect a surprise SEC headline every weekend

A quick way to reduce rumor risk is to know the recent filing cadence. StockAnalysis’ SEC-filings snapshot shows Rigetti’s most recent major items in 2025 included an 8‑K and 10‑Q filed on Nov. 10, 2025, with later entries primarily reflecting Form 144 activity. ^[24]

That doesn’t rule out new filings—companies can file anytime—but it helps contextualize whether “breaking” posts are likely to be real or recycled.

The bottom line for Rigetti stock right now

Rigetti is trading at the intersection of three forces that rarely coexist peacefully: a legitimately ambitious deep-tech roadmap, a balance sheet that analysts argue buys time to pursue it, and a market that can reprice “the future” brutally fast when liquidity is thin.

Friday’s drop didn’t invalidate the long-term quantum thesis—but it did reinforce the near-term truth: RGTI is a high-volatility stock where narrative, positioning, and execution credibility matter at least as much as quarterly revenue.

When markets reopen Monday, the first question won’t be “Is quantum computing real?” It’ll be something more immediate and more human: who still wants to hold risk at these prices, and who doesn’t.