Quantum Stocks Looked Like Nvidia in 2019. Then They Belly-Flopped 50%.

Back in June, I made a big call: quantum computing looked a lot like Nvidia (NVDA) in 2019, and the sector could be sitting at the beginning of a generational investment cycle. My favorite speculative pure-play was IonQ (IONQ), while IBM (IBM) and Alphabet (GOOGL) were my safer megacap choices, and Defiance Quantum ETF (QTUM) was my diversified option. 

Then, many of the very same quantum stocks I wrote about took a dive this summer, and it wasn't the graceful kind. More like a belly flop off the high board.

Why Did Quantum Stocks Plunge Around 50% This Summer?

IonQ hit $73.65 on June 3 before crashing to $31.81 on July 29, 2026, or about a 57% decline from peak to trough. 

Of course, it wasn’t the only one. Rigetti Computing (RGTI) fell about 53% from $28.06 on June 3, 2026, to $13.13 on July 29, 2026.

D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) dropped around 49% from $31.55 on May 22, 2026, to $16.02 on July 17, 2026.

Quantinuum (QNT) went through a similar move after its IPO. It fell from $86.79 on July 6 to $47.06 on July 29, 2026, before rebounding.

Then August arrived, and the same stocks snapped right back up. IonQ rebounded about 51% from its July low to its next August high; Rigetti gained 48%; D-Wave recovered 37%; and Quantinuum climbed around 54% from its July low.

But this rally did very little to erase the damage. IonQ, for example, remained well below its June high even after the rebound.

The timing of the rebound matters. IonQ reported its second-quarter results on August 5; Rigetti and D-Wave followed on August 6; and Quantinuum reported on August 11, giving investors fresh information about the businesses.

The selloff was also part of a wider pullback in highly valued technology stocks in July.

That changes how I read the quantum stock crash. It looks less like one event broke the quantum story and more like investors suddenly demanded a much higher level of proof from companies whose valuations had run far ahead of their current businesses.

And that brings me to the question that matters much more than the stock charts. Did the fundamentals at least hold up?

Did the Fundamentals of IonQ, Rigetti, And D-Wave Hold Up?

IonQ gave us the clearest answer. Second-quarter revenue reached a record $80 million, up 287% year over year and 20% above the midpoint of its previous guidance range, while commercial customers produced about 60% of revenue and international customers accounted for roughly half. 

Remaining performance obligations (RPOs) also increased 297% from a year earlier. IonQ then raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $280 million to $290 million.

The guidance change is especially important for this follow-up. After the first quarter, the midpoint of IonQ’s full-year revenue guidance was at $265 million, and after the second quarter it was $285 million.

That’s a 7.5% increase in the company's revenue outlook while the stock had fallen 57% from its June high. The updated 2026 guidance also excludes any contribution from SkyWater Technology.

IonQ also completed its acquisition of SkyWater on July 31. The deal gives IonQ access to U.S.-based semiconductor fabrication, advanced packaging, manufacturing infrastructure, and a larger role in its supply chain, but it also adds integration and manufacturing execution risk. 

Then came the DARPA award. IonQ received a $28 million contract extension under the It's About Time program, plus a $30 million option, for Evergreen-05 optical atomic clocks, and plans to invest $15 million in production capabilities.

The DARPA award matters, but it needs to be described correctly. It is a quantum sensing and precision-timing contract, not a quantum-computing contract, so it expands IonQ's broader platform without proving that its computing business has already reached scale. 

Rigetti passed a different part of the stress test. Second-quarter revenue came in at around $5 million, operating loss was about $28 million, and net loss (GAAP) was around $53 million, but Rigetti finished June with $541 million in cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale investments and zero debt.

Technically, Rigetti continued to move forward. Its 108-qubit Cepheus-1-108Q is operating at roughly 99.9% median single-qubit gate fidelity and roughly 99.1% median two-qubit gate fidelity, with gate speeds around 60 nanoseconds.

These are some useful engineering milestones, but they still need to become products that customers are willing to buy. It’s the gap between Rigetti’s progress on paper and a much larger commercial business.

D-Wave, on the other hand, gave us the messiest quarter. Second-quarter revenue was around $3 million and first-half revenue fell 67% to about $6 million, although the prior-year period included $13.7 million from a large system sale. But its bookings tell a different story.

First-half bookings reached about $36 million, up 1,120%, while RPOs went up 668% to around $41 million. D-Wave expects roughly 57% of that RPO to be recognized as revenue over the next 12 months.

Of course, these numbers do need a little context. A $20 million system sale made up a large part of the bookings figure, so the real test is whether D-Wave can turn those large orders into a repeatable revenue stream. 

In a recent interview, D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz told me the economics behind that bet are already lopsided in the company's favor: "It costs us a little less than $2 million to build and deploy one of our annealing quantum computers. But each of those systems can support 25 to 30 million of revenue per year."

Put the three companies together, and the crash looks a lot different. IonQ's business improved materially; Rigetti's balance sheet and technology held up; and D-Wave's future revenue picture improved even though current revenue remained weak.

Conclusion: The stocks fell together. The businesses did not.

Are Quantum Stocks a Better Buy After the 50% Selloff? 

A stock falling 50% does not automatically create value. Sometimes the stock deserves to fall that far because the business has deteriorated.

IonQ gives us a better example of what a valuation reset can look like. Its shares fell 57% from the June high to the July low while full-year revenue guidance later moved from a $265 million midpoint to $285 million.

That does not make the stock cheap. At the August 24 close of $41.06 and roughly 381 million shares outstanding, IonQ's equity value was around $15.6 billion against a $285 million midpoint of standalone 2026 revenue guidance, or about 55 times expected sales. 

Cheaper and cheap are two different things. For IonQ, the selloff improved the entry point without removing the risk that the company may take longer than expected to justify its valuation.

The same argument is harder to make for Rigetti. Its technology and balance sheet held up, but $5 million in quarterly revenue remains embryonic relative to its valuation.

D-Wave has a different problem. Bookings and RPO improved sharply, but as I mentioned earlier, investors still need to see those orders become actual revenue.

So the selloff did not create a blanket buying opportunity. It created better visibility into the companies whose businesses improved during the crash, rather than companies whose stocks simply became cheaper.

That difference matters as quantum investors are still buying future earnings, not current profits. Lower prices help, but it does not protect a shareholder if the technology takes longer to commercialize than the market expects.

Is IonQ Still the Best Quantum Stock To Buy?

Among the speculative pure plays, IonQ is still my number-one choice. The reason is simply that its quarterly revenue dwarfed Rigetti’s and D-Wave’s.

IonQ combined its revenue growth with a higher 2026 outlook, expanding remaining performance obligations, a broader commercial and international customer base, the SkyWater acquisition, and additional government business. That gives me more evidence of an operating business than I see from the other established U.S.-listed pure plays.

There’s also a pure-play ranking I would change following my original thesis. Quantinuum is no longer a wildcard that is too new to judge.

Its second-quarter results showed $8 million of revenue, up 279% year over year, with full-year guidance of $28 million to $32 million. The company has $2.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments after raising $1.7 billion through its IPO.

Its technology is also moving forward. Quantinuum’s Helios system has reached “near five-nines” (99.999%) logical fidelity on Helios, while a partnership with Oracle (ORCL) is making the system available through the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

IonQ still has the larger commercial business by a wide margin. But Quantinuum now has enough financial disclosure, capital, technical progress, and commercial activity to become the challenger I would watch most closely.

My calls on IBM and Alphabet also survive. Both still offer serious quantum exposure without requiring quantum computing to justify their entire valuations.

IBM has committed more than $10 billion to quantum computing over the next five years across research, manufacturing, capital spending, partnerships, and acquisitions. Its 2026 roadmap also targets the first examples of quantum advantage through systems integrated with high-performance computing.

Alphabet is zeroing in on one of the field's hardest problems: error correction. Google Quantum AI has reported work that combines reinforcement learning with quantum error correction so the system can adapt to drift during longer calculations instead of relying only on repeated recalibration.

So IBM and Alphabet remain my safer megacap choices. QTUM remains the only option I’d favor for anyone wanting exposure to quantum without having to identify an eventual winner. The crash proved why that matters. 

QTUM fell from $170 on June 3, 2026, to $132.10 on July 29 – a 22.3% drawdown, far less than the losses we saw in the pure-play names.

That protection comes from breadth. QTUM is not a pure quantum fund; it also reaches into machine learning, AI chips, superconducting materials, software, and other advanced-computing businesses, with the latest detailed fund information showing 89 holdings and a 0.40% expense ratio.

What Could Move Quantum Stocks Next?

IonQ has the clearest dated catalyst. The combined IonQ and SkyWater company is scheduled to hold an Investor Day on September 8 at the New York Stock Exchange, where investors should get a better look at the manufacturing strategy, integration, financial expectations, and the role SkyWater will play in the technology roadmap. 

That event matters because the acquisition changes more than IonQ's supplier base. It changes the company's scale and complexity, so investors need to see whether the strategic logic translates into real operating benefits.

Rigetti's next catalyst is potentially much larger, but much less certain. The company has a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce for up to $100 million of funding over three years, but the final terms and the dilution tied to the proposed government equity stake still matter. 

D-Wave's next test is simpler: Show me the revenue.

The company expects third-quarter revenue to rise modestly and fourth-quarter revenue to increase significantly, with the fourth quarter expected to represent most of 2026 revenue. Two annealing systems are also scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter, although some installation and calibration revenue could move into 2027.

D-Wave now has about $41 million in contracted business that it has not yet recorded as revenue. That gives us better visibility into the next few quarters and makes the timing of those deliveries more important than another jump in bookings. 

IBM's checkpoint is, of course, technological. The company says it has now demonstrated quantum advantage with multiple research partners, achieving a key milestone from its 2026 roadmap, while its Nighthawk architecture stays central to scaling those capabilities. 

For IBM shareholders, quantum does not need to work immediately for the investment to work. Successful milestones would, however, make IBM's position as one of the safer ways to own long-term quantum exposure much easier to defend.

Those are the catalysts that matter now. I care much less about whether IonQ’s revenue gains another 20% next quarter or whether the SkyWater integration delivers the benefits investors expect.

The same logic applies to Rigetti and D-Wave. Rigetti needs its technical progress to show up in sales, while D-Wave needs its bookings to reach the income statement.

What Are The Biggest Risks Of Buying Quantum Stocks Now?

The valuation reset improved the setup. It did not remove the risk.

These companies are still spending far more than their businesses currently generate. IonQ reported a $1.9 billion GAAP net loss in the second quarter against $80 million in revenue; Rigetti generated $5 million in revenue while reporting around a $53 million GAAP net loss; D-Wave generated $3 million while reporting about $48 million GAAP net loss; Quantinuum reported $8 million of revenue with a $597 million GAAP net loss. 

These numbers matter because quantum computing is still years away from being called a mature business. The companies have enough cash to keep developing their technology, but they may need to raise money before their revenue becomes large enough to cover their costs.

That creates a second risk for shareholders: dilution. If a company keeps issuing shares to fund its development, the business can grow while each existing shareholder's ownership becomes smaller and smaller.

Valuation makes that problem more important. The market is already pricing these companies for much larger businesses in the future, so even strong technical progress may not be enough if revenue grows more slowly than investors expect.

There is also a harder-to-measure technology risk as well. Nobody knows which quantum architecture will ultimately win, and a company can spend years developing the wrong approach before the market decides which systems are actually useful.

That is why I would treat the pure-play stocks differently from IBM and Alphabet. The megacaps can benefit from quantum progress without needing quantum computing to become a major business today, while the pure plays need the technology and the stock valuation to work at the same time.

Did the Quantum Stock Thesis Survive the Crash?

Until the next earnings season, and unless something meaningful changes, I think quantum stocks are going to tread water after that disastrous belly flop.

The latest results, however, did change my view in one important way. I am less interested in when and how much quantum stocks as a group might rebound, at least in the short term. Now, I’m more interested in whether the companies can grow into the prices investors are still willing to pay.

Take IonQ. If revenue keeps rising at a strong pace and SkyWater helps the company build a bigger business, the summer crash could end up looking like a painful reset rather than a broken story.

Rigetti and D-Wave face a tougher road. Rigetti needs customers to show that its technical progress has real value, while D-Wave needs its growing backlog to turn into steady revenue.

Quantinuum gives investors another possibility. Its technology and cash give it room to push forward, but the business still has to grow into that advantage.

There is a less comfortable scenario too. Quantum hardware can improve year after year while customers take their time adopting it, leaving these companies with large losses and investors waiting longer for the payoff.

That is the risk I would keep in mind. A company can help advance quantum computing without becoming a great stock, and the next few quarters should tell us which businesses are actually closing that gap.