QBTS shorts near a year-high with earnings eight days out

Short interest in D-Wave Quantum has reached 23.0% of the free float, up 10.0% in a single week. That weekly build is 1.7 standard deviations above the company's own typical pace of change, and the position is now at its highest level in at least a year.

The borrow market makes that number harder to act on for new shorts. Availability has fallen to 3.8%, meaning fewer than four shares remain available to lend for every hundred already out on loan. On October 26, availability briefly touched 0.57%, close to the 52-week floor of 0.52%. This same cycle has played out three times in October: availability compresses toward zero, then recovers partially, without triggering a sustained reversal in either the stock or the short position. Cost to borrow remains low at 1.04%, up 9.1% on the week, and has not risen in line with the tightness in supply. That gap matters: if availability falls again and fresh short demand appears ahead of the November 5 earnings release, the cost to borrow could reprice quickly.

Options traders are not pressing on the downside. The put/call ratio is 0.72, just below its 20-day average of 0.73 and near the lower end of its 52-week range of 0.60 to 0.91. The short score has ticked up to 73.7 from around 72.3 a week ago, placing QBTS in the 4th percentile by short-score rank across the ORTEX universe. Days to cover is estimated at five days based on the latest FINRA fortnightly data, meaning the position would take over a week of normal volume to unwind.

On the Street, valuation remains a structural challenge. The company is loss-making, with a negative earnings yield and a price-to-book multiple of 4.9, down roughly 1.8 points over the past 30 days as the stock retreated. The EV/EBITDA ratio is deeply negative at -26.1. The EPS surprise factor score of 80 reflects a pattern of beating depressed estimates. Short-score rank and days-to-cover rank both sit in the bottom 10% of the universe. The stock is down 30.3% over the past month, closing at $12.13, even as it recovered 3.0% in the past week. That recovery outpaced the median peer move of roughly 1.7%. GRRR gained 23.9% on the week and DUOT added 9.0%, but neither carries the same short load.

Retail attention is elevated in a way that is unusual for this name. The ORTEX Wikipedia-views signal carries a z-score of 5.6 against QBTS's own 90-day history, a reading that reflects attention rather than any revenue signal. That kind of retail spike alongside a record short position creates a setup where the path of least resistance for both sides depends heavily on what the November 5 print contains. BlackRock reported holding 8.9% of shares as of September 30, up from 7.1% at its prior disclosure. The Vanguard entities collectively hold another roughly 10%, though the overall Vanguard group's consolidated position has shifted, with The Vanguard Group filing to show zero shares in March 2026 after previously disclosing 11.35%.

The insider picture adds little conviction either way. October 15 transactions for the CEO, acting CFO, CLO, and CHRO were all tax-withholding sales coded F, compensation mechanics rather than discretionary selling. Net insider activity over the past 90 days is marginally negative at -4,170 shares and -$71,842 in value.

The number to watch is availability. Three times in October it has compressed toward zero and then recovered. If it reaches that level again in the eight days before the earnings release and cost to borrow fails to adjust, the lending market will be one of the clearest signals of how aggressively bears are pressing into the report.