Record Orders and a Steep Selloff: D-Wave’s Contradictory Juncture
Published on 07/21/2026 at 11:52 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
D-Wave Quantum is living a double life. In the first quarter, the company posted a nearly 2,000% jump in bookings to $33.4 million, while its operating loss widened fivefold to $54.7 million. The market has responded by sending the shares down roughly 62% from an October 2025 peak of €38.48, and the stock now trades at around €15.07 after a modest 2.6% bounce on Tuesday. With an annualized volatility above 75% and a market capitalisation of €5.43 billion that looks increasingly disconnected from trailing twelve-month revenue of just $12.4 million, D-Wave has become a case study in how speculative tech narratives can diverge from operating reality.
Some of the recent selling pressure appears to be mechanical rather than ominous. CEO Alan Baratz sold 52,320 shares on 14 July, a transaction that was described as non-discretionary and designed solely to cover tax obligations arising from vested restricted stock units. After the sale, Baratz still holds roughly 3.2 million shares directly, including more than 1.1 million unexercised equity rights. Overall insider ownership stands at a thin 0.88%, leaving the company’s fate overwhelmingly in the hands of a broad retail and institutional base.
Technically, the picture remains fragile. The 14-day relative strength index has dipped to 30.9, flirting with oversold territory, while the stock trades roughly a quarter below its 50-day moving average of €20.19 and an even wider discount to the 200-day average of €20.03. The 52-week low of €11.12 was set in late March 2026, and despite a 32% recovery from that floor, the year-to-date decline – which had widened to 35.19% at its worst – has narrowed only to about 33.5% after the recent uptick. This leaves the shares in no-man’s-land: too beaten down to attract momentum buyers, yet lacking the catalyst to trigger a trend reversal.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying D-Wave Quantum?
All of this is playing out against a flurry of corporate and strategic activity. D-Wave is voluntarily moving its listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq, with the switch effective after the close on 24 July and trading set to begin under the familiar ticker QBTS on 27 July. The company has also expanded into gate-model quantum computing through the January acquisition of Quantum Circuits, and it recently secured a grant from the US National Science Foundation, earned a Leaders placement from IDC, and released a new gate-model simulator. Yet none of these developments have arrested the slide – a marked change from 2025, when almost any quantum headline sent the stock higher.
Wall Street has yet to catch up with the market’s scepticism. The average analyst price target stands at €32.90, implying upside of roughly 124% from current levels. That gap has prompted comparisons to the dot-com era, when companies like Cisco lost nearly 80% of their market value even as analysts maintained bullish projections. Whether the sell-off reflects a fundamental reassessment or is simply a function of positioning and momentum remains the central debate.
The next quarterly report will be the first real test of whether bookings growth can begin to close the gap with the cost base, which has ballooned in part because of the Quantum Circuits deal. Until then, the Nasdaq listing on 27 July will serve as a pressure gauge for a stock caught between a record order book and an escalating burn rate – a contradiction that only one side of the ledger can resolve.
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