Rigetti Computing gained nearly 10% on the week to close at $16.52, yet short interest remains anchored near 18% of the free float — a tension between price recovery and persistent bearish conviction that makes the current setup genuinely interesting.
The positioning picture is contradictory in ways worth unpacking. Short interest has barely moved — down less than 0.1% on the week to around 60 million shares, or 18.2% of the free float — and has been remarkably stable since early September. That's a high absolute level. Yet borrow conditions tell a surprisingly relaxed story: cost to borrow has drifted up to about 0.99% over the past month (up 39% from August levels, but still well within "easy borrow" territory), and availability has actually loosened sharply this week, moving from 25% on Monday to 36% by Tuesday. On a 52-week basis, availability has ranged from a tight 25% to a peak approaching 49%, so the current reading is in the middle of its range — not a squeeze setup. Shorts are committed, but they are not paying up to stay short, and there is no immediate pressure forcing them to cover. The ORTEX short score reinforces this: a steady 69.6 reading over the past two weeks, well elevated but showing no directional urgency in either direction. Options traders are similarly relaxed — the put/call ratio of 0.75 sits fractionally below its 20-day average, with a z-score near -0.8, meaning no unusual defensive hedging is visible ahead of the November 12 earnings date.
The Street remains constructive on paper but has been quietly trimming ambitions. Rosenblatt and Wedbush both maintained Buy-equivalent ratings around the August earnings print, holding $40 targets. However, Mizuho and Benchmark each cut targets multiple times earlier in 2026, and the consensus mean target of $28.81 — compared with the current price of $16.52 — implies roughly 74% upside. That gap is large enough to flag: it may reflect genuine conviction in quantum's long-term trajectory, or it may simply be that no one has updated their models recently (the most recent analyst action in the data is from early August). The bull case rests on progress toward a 108-qubit system, cloud partnerships, and government contracts; the bear case centres on cash burn, tech-giant competition, and uncertain adoption timelines. The EPS surprise factor score ranks in the 92nd percentile — the company has beaten estimates consistently — but momentum factors are deeply negative, and the stock is down about 8% over the past month despite this week's bounce.
The ownership picture adds a notable data point. BlackRock filed a 13G/A in late July disclosing a stake that has grown from 6.4% to 7.9% of the class — the most recent 13D/G-level move on the register. Meanwhile, two Vanguard entities filed fresh 13G disclosures in April establishing positions above 5%. None of these are activist 13D filings; all are passive. On the insider side, CEO Subodh Kulkarni exercised options and sold 120,000 shares for roughly $1.9 million on September 9 — a pre-arranged 10b5-1 transaction, which limits its signal value. The CFO conducted a similar exercise-and-sell on September 3. The most notable insider trade in the trailing 90 days was actually from CTO Andrew Bestwick, who received a grant of 750,000 shares on August 18 with no associated open-market sale — a compensation award rather than a conviction signal. Net insider activity over 90 days totals a sale of roughly 249,000 shares worth about $4.3 million, dominated by the CEO's 10b5-1 programme.
After the most recent quarterly earnings on August 6, the stock gained almost 7% the next day and held a 5-day gain of nearly 11% — a notably positive reaction for a pre-profit quantum computing name. The next scheduled print is November 12, giving the market seven more weeks to decide whether that reaction was a re-rating or a dead-cat bounce. With availability still well above the 52-week trough, shorts showing no urgency to cover, and the peer group — including IONQ, which gained 10% this week — trading more actively, the key variable to watch is whether RGTI can close the gap to its quantum-computing peer or whether the 18% short interest becomes a ceiling rather than a coiled spring.
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