Rigetti Computing heads into its June 9 earnings call with a striking new wrinkle: the executives running the company have been selling aggressively into the rally, even as short sellers quietly trim their bets.
The insider picture is the most notable development since the last note. CEO Subodh Kulkarni sold shares on both May 28 and June 1, collecting roughly $2.6 million across the two transactions. CTO David Rivas went further — a May 29 sale of 499,000 shares netted nearly $12.7 million, the largest single insider transaction in the recent record. CFO Jeffrey Bertelsen also trimmed a small position on May 22. All three members of the executive team have sold into the 54% one-month price gain, with net insider selling across the past 90 days totalling over $16.5 million. These are not trivial amounts. Insider selling into a momentum move of this magnitude is worth tracking closely ahead of a catalyst event.
The short interest story has quietly shifted direction. Shorts are no longer rebuilding — they are covering. Short interest has eased to 15.9% of the free float, down from the 16.2% peak flagged in the previous note, and the week-on-week decline is just under 2%. At 52.4 million shares short, the position remains substantial. The lending market is not flashing stress signals: cost to borrow has ticked up 14% on the week but remains well under 1% annualised at 0.84%, meaning it costs shorts almost nothing to hold their positions. Availability has loosened to 79% from around 64% a week ago — more borrow supply has returned to the pool, which removes one potential trigger for a forced short squeeze. The ORTEX short score of 65.7 reflects elevated but stable bearish positioning.
Options traders, meanwhile, have turned more constructive than their recent habit. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.89, nearly a full standard deviation below its 20-day average of 0.94. That is the most call-skewed reading in several weeks, suggesting the options market is leaning into the rally rather than hedging against a reversal ahead of earnings. It is a notable contrast to the defensive options posture that was more typical for RGTI through April and early May, when the PCR was consistently running above 1.0.
The analyst community is cautiously positive but has been trimming targets. Mizuho's Vijay Rakesh cut his price target from $33 to $27 in mid-May while maintaining an Outperform rating — a move that now looks almost exactly calibrated to where the stock is trading at $26.88. Needham reiterated its Buy with a $31 target. Benchmark has a $25 target. The mean target across coverage is $29.24, leaving only modest upside from current levels. The bull case centres on Rigetti's 108-qubit system achieving broad commercial traction and the 199% year-on-year revenue growth continuing. Bears point to accelerating cash burn, dilution risk, and a competitive landscape stacked with far better-capitalised rivals. The EPS surprise factor score of 83 out of 100 suggests the company has a strong recent track record of beating estimates — a data point that will matter on June 9.
The most recent earnings reaction provides useful context. The May 11 print produced a muted 0.7% next-day move but was followed by a 12% five-day pullback. The February report saw a 5.7% next-day decline and a further 4% over five days. Neither reaction suggests the stock has a history of surging on results. What to watch on June 9 is therefore less about whether Rigetti beats the headline number and more about whether management addresses the cash runway trajectory — and whether the executives who just sold tens of millions of dollars of stock have any reassuring words for the investors left holding it.
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