Shares of Rigetti Computing surged 10% to $17.63 after Wedbush Securities initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and a $40 price target, injecting fresh Wall Street optimism into a stock that has already climbed roughly 33% in the past week alone. The call forces investors to weigh a bold thesis: that Rigetti's advances in quantum chip technology can translate into real revenue before the cash runs out. Wedbush Bets Big on Rigetti With a $40 Target — But Can $5 Million in Quarterly Revenue Support a Multibillion-Dollar Dream?
Shares rocketed 10% to $17.63, capping a 33% weekly rally, after Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson launched coverage with an Outperform rating and a $40 price target — implying 127% further upside. The call lands just as Rigetti reported Q2 results, forcing investors to reconcile Wall Street enthusiasm with a company still burning far more cash than it earns.
A Street-High Target Backed by a Chorus of Bulls. Wedbush set its $40 target , the most aggressive on Wall Street, joining Benchmark (Buy, $25), Cantor Fitzgerald (Overweight, $30), and Craig-Hallum (Buy, $30) . Even the most cautious bull, Mizuho, recently trimmed its target from $33 to $27 but kept an Outperform rating. That kind of consensus can attract momentum-driven capital, but it also means any stumble — a missed fidelity benchmark, a delayed contract — could trigger a sharp reversal given how far the stock has already run.
The Technology Story Is Real but Revenue Isn't There Yet. Wedbush argues that improving accuracy (called "fidelity") of quantum calculations, not simply adding more processing units ("qubits"), is the 2026 milestone for Rigetti.
Management targets roughly 99.5% accuracy on its flagship 108-qubit system by year-end, with prototypes already hitting 99.9%. Impressive on a lab bench — but Q2 revenue came in at just $5.13 million , and Wedbush itself projects only $30.5 million for full-year 2026, heavily back-loaded with $14.8 million in Q4 . At today's roughly $5 billion market capitalization, that implies a price-to-sales ratio above 160x.
Cash Runway Is Comfortable — for Now. Rigetti ended Q2 with $541.3 million in cash and no debt , down from $569 million at the end of Q1 . Quarterly operating cash burn ran roughly $16 million in Q1 , giving the company over eight years of runway at the current pace. But operating expenses jumped 48% year-over-year in Q2 , and management concedes most commercial use cases remain "research-oriented" today . Government contracts — which accounted for 90% of 2025 revenue — still dominate.
The Bigger Bet Is on the Decade, Not the Quarter. IBM's CEO recently predicted quantum computing would deliver "a trillion dollars of value" by the late 2030s. Wedbush is essentially asking investors to pay up now for that future. The quantum sector faces an "ongoing gap between market valuations and revenue" — and Rigetti, with widening losses and no clear path to profitability before 2028 at earliest, is the sharpest expression of that bet.