New York, June 5, 2026, 19:04 (EDT)
Rigetti Computing Inc. shares dropped Friday, falling as much as 14.5%. The stock changed hands around $20.68, after opening at $23.08 and hitting a session low of $20.11. Turnover reached about 50.2 million shares. Rigetti’s market cap was close to $6.94 billion.
Selloff hit a volatile quantum-computing stock as investors pulled back from pricey tech shares. The Nasdaq Composite slid 4.18%, S&P 500 dropped 2.64%, and Dow fell 1.35%, all after May payrolls topped forecasts, raising fears that U.S. rates might stay high or even rise.
That kind of rate move usually hits so-called “long-duration” stocks. These are companies that rely on future profits. Rigetti is one of them. Its stock doesn’t trade on today’s earnings, but rather on hopes that quantum computers will make it at scale.
Tech stocks got hit Friday as some strategists called it a reset following a packed rally in the sector. “The market’s ‘dam just broke today,’” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group. Wells Fargo chief equity strategist Ohsung Kwon said semiconductors were “way overbought.” Reuters
Losses hit across listed quantum stocks. IonQ shares slipped around 13.5% to $56.78 in late trading, with D-Wave Quantum off 13.7% at $23.85. Quantum names dropped as a group, not just Rigetti.
Quantum computers rely on qubits, which can hold more than just zero or one, making them suited for uses like drug discovery, materials science and cryptography. But commercializing these systems is tricky. Turning research hardware into steady businesses is still costly and unclear.
Rigetti’s bullish view has centered on backing from the government and hitting product goals. On May 21 the company said it signed a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for as much as $100 million over three years. The deal could give the department an equity stake. CEO Subodh Kulkarni said the money would go to solving “key scaling bottlenecks.” GlobeNewswire
Rigetti is still early, according to its latest numbers. The company reported $4.4 million in revenue for the first quarter and an operating loss of $26.0 million. Cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale investments totaled $569.0 million at the end of March.
Amazon Web Services said June 1 that Rigetti’s Cepheus-1-108Q is now on Amazon Braket, becoming the first gate-based quantum machine with more than 100 qubits there. The device brings together twelve 9-qubit chiplets. AWS put median two-qubit gate fidelity at 99.1% at launch, which means that’s how often a quantum operation works as it should.
Analysts are paying more attention to execution than the top-line qubit count. Jefferies analyst Kevin Garrigan said after the first-quarter results that Rigetti had a solid quarter, but, as he told Investor’s Business Daily, “the real unlock is proving fidelity can scale.” Investors
Friday’s fall showed the risks. Rising yields can squeeze valuations, and the Commerce letter hinges on firm deals. An equity stake might dilute shareholders. Rigetti has also pointed out risks like missing milestones, delays in products, issues with government funding, cash needs, competition, and wider inflation or rates pressure.
Right now, the stock trades in a gap. On one side is a company making progress in a field that keeps attracting new public cash. On the other, investors this month have pulled back from names that promise profits far in the future.
