D-Wave Shorts Dig In as Borrow Pool Tightens Before Thursday Print

QBTS heads into its August 6 earnings release with one of the most crowded short positions in the quantum computing space — and a borrow market that just got significantly tighter.

Short sellers have been building conviction all month. Short interest has climbed 16% over the past 30 days to nearly 18.9% of the free float, with the pace of accumulation accelerating: the weekly increase alone ran to 3.5%. That's a meaningful position by any measure. What makes it more pointed heading into the print is the borrow market. Availability has tightened sharply — dropping from around 30% last week to just 7.1% now, meaning only one share remains available to borrow for roughly every thirteen already lent out. The 52-week low on availability was 0.7%, so the pool hasn't run dry, but the week-on-week tightening of nearly 30 percentage points is abrupt. Cost to borrow remains low at under 1%, which tells you the squeeze pressure hasn't materialized yet — but availability at this level historically precedes it. Options traders are not adding much directional signal: the put/call ratio of 0.80 sits almost exactly at its 20-day average, implying no unusual defensive positioning into the event.

The bull and bear cases for D-Wave are well-worn but unresolved. Bears point to the financials: the company carries deeply negative earnings, a price-to-book of roughly 7.3x with no path to near-term profitability, and an EV/EBITDA that is negative at -43.6x — standard for early-stage quantum names but hard to defend against a market increasingly focused on monetization timelines. The recent stock score of 68.6 ranks in roughly the 4th percentile on short-score — placing QBTS among the most shorted stocks in the ORTEX universe — while the utilization rank sits in the 3rd percentile. Bulls counter with momentum: the stock jumped 10.5% in Monday's session alone, recovering some of a 11% monthly decline that brought shares to $19.98. The broader quantum peer group is also moving; DUOT and BTQ both gained on the week, though MARA and BTBT — which trade with moderate correlation to QBTS — pulled back, suggesting the Monday bounce was more stock-specific than sector-wide.

The insider picture adds a note of caution. CEO Alan Baratz sold nearly $1 million of stock on July 14, alongside the CFO and Chief Legal Officer — a coordinated cluster of sells at prices around $18.66. The CFO made an additional sale of $2.57 million in mid-June near $25.68, before the stock's subsequent decline. Net insider activity over the past 90 days shows net selling of roughly $39.5 million in value. Past earnings reactions have also been one-directional: the last two prints produced a 1-day decline of 10.8% and a 5-day decline of 24.3% in May, and a more modest 1-day slip followed by a 14.3% five-day fall in June. Those are small sample points, but the pattern is consistent.

Thursday's print will test whether D-Wave can offer enough commercial traction — enterprise partnerships, revenue trajectory, or any update on quantum advantage timelines — to give the large and growing short base a reason to reconsider.