QBTS heads into its Q1 2026 earnings print with a striking paradox: the stock has surged 69% in a month, yet short sellers are not backing down.
Short interest is real and substantial, running at 15.5% of free float — roughly 53.9 million shares on loan as of May 8. That level has barely budged this past week, up just 1.1%, despite the stock adding nearly 15% in seven days and 6.5% on Monday alone. The lending market is moderately tight: availability has eased from its most constrained levels earlier this spring, though the borrow pool is not freely open. Cost to borrow remains low at 0.88% — well within normal territory — meaning shorts are not being squeezed out by economics. The ORTEX short score of 67.5 ranks in roughly the 92nd percentile of the universe, signalling that the broader constellation of short-side signals remains elevated even as the stock runs. Options positioning reflects a similar wariness: the put/call ratio nudged up to 0.71 on Monday, about 1.6 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.68. That is not panic-level hedging, but it marks the highest defensive reading in recent weeks — options traders are quietly leaning toward protection even as the stock rips.
The bull-versus-bear debate on D-Wave pivots on a single question: whether the company's commercial traction justifies the valuation. Bulls point to deals with Anduril, AT&T, BASF, and Vueling Airlines as evidence that annealing quantum computing has moved beyond the lab. EPS surprise has ranked in the 86th percentile historically, and 90-day EPS momentum lands in the 95th percentile — the company has been persistently beating low expectations. Analysts who cover the stock maintain positive ratings across the board: Mizuho, Evercore ISI, Needham, and Roth Capital all carry Buy or Outperform ratings, with targets ranging from $30 to $42. The mean target of roughly $36.75 is now actually below the current price of $24 — though note that the consensus was struck in early April, before the stock's 69% one-month rally — so targets may not yet reflect the move. Bears flag an unprofitable business with negative EV/EBITDA of –52x, a price-to-book that has expanded roughly 3.3 points over the past month to 8.7x, and an ongoing dilution risk through secondary offerings. Competition from large-cap tech players in gate-model quantum remains the structural overhang.
The insider picture adds another cautionary layer. Every insider trade on record in the past 90 days has been a sale. The CEO sold 33,778 shares at $14.25 on April 13. The CFO and Chief Legal Officer sold on the same day. An EVP followed with a smaller sale on April 20. None of these were large in absolute dollar terms — the CEO's trade totalled roughly $481K — but the unanimity and timing, just ahead of the stock's sharpest leg higher, is notable. That pattern sits alongside BlackRock's addition of nearly two million shares through April 30, suggesting passive and systematic buyers are absorbing the stock at prices company insiders were using to reduce exposure.
The print — arriving against this backdrop of heavy short positioning, insider selling, and a stock that has dramatically re-rated in just four weeks — is a test of whether D-Wave's revenue trajectory can provide a fundamental anchor for a valuation that has moved well ahead of the analyst community's last formal update.
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