Key Takeaways
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B. Riley cut its D-Wave Quantum price target to $22 from $27 on Monday and kept its Buy rating. That's its second cut in a week.
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D-Wave's revenue has come in below analysts' estimates for three quarters in a row, and this year's forecast depends on two machines shipping in the fourth quarter.
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The $22 target works out to about 126x forward sales, below the stock's 3-year average of 152x and 34% below the Street's $33 consensus target.
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B. Riley's lower target looks right, and the $33 average looks out of reach until D-Wave delivers the revenue it expects in the fourth quarter.
D-Wave Quantum ( QBTS:NASDAQ )has lost 62% over the past year, and B. Riley has cut its target on the stock for the second time in a week. Analyst Craig Ellis kept his Buy rating and lowered his target to $22 from $27 on Monday, which is still 92% above this morning's price.
Revenue keeps arriving late
D-Wave's revenue has come in below analysts' estimates three quarters running . The latest miss came on Aug. 6: second-quarter revenue of $3.1 million, short of the $4.02 million consensus. GAAP operating expenses rose 93% to $55.0 million. And this fall, law firms filed class actions claiming D-Wave overstated its growth prospects between Feb. 26 and Aug. 25.
B. Riley cut twice and kept its Buy
Monday's cut comes after one on Nov. 2 , when Ellis took his target to $27 from $40. That's 45% off his target in eight days.
The road to $22 runs through revenue. Analysts expect D-Wave's sales to grow 74% this year to $42.7 million, then come close to doubling in each of the next two years:
That's a steep climb for a company that hasn't topped $3.1 million in a quarter this year.
TIKR tracks 17 analysts on D-Wave Quantum. How many say "Buy"?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on D-Wave Quantum, along with Wall Street's revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See D-Wave Quantum's Analyst Ratings
Does $22 add up?
The 17 analysts who cover D-Wave have barely moved their targets through the selloff. The consensus was $32.34 a year ago, peaked at $39.17 on Jan. 28, and stands at $33.21 now.
D-Wave trades at 61x forward sales. Its 3-year average is 152x, pulled up by a run to 839x in October 2025:
Divide $22 by the roughly $0.18 of sales a share that analysts expect over the next twelve months, and the target works out to about 126x forward sales. That's below the 3-year average.
The catch is that those sales estimates depend on one quarter. Analysts' $42.7 million for 2026 needs about $36.8 million in the second half , after $5.9 million in the first. CFO John Markovich said on the August call that both of this year's system deliveries will likely ship in the fourth quarter, with that quarter "comprising the majority of the year's total revenue."
The $33 average is the target that needs to come down
D-Wave had $546.2 million of cash and securities at June 30, but its diluted share count roughly tripled from 2022 to mid-2026.
I think B. Riley has it right. Its $22 needs a lower multiple than D-Wave has averaged over the past three years, while the $33 consensus looks out of reach until D-Wave delivers the revenue. Tuesday's third-quarter report will show whether the fourth-quarter machines are still on schedule. If they slip into 2027, the sales behind that 126x shrink, and $22 goes down with them.
So what is D-Wave Quantum stock actually worth?
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