IonQ Sinks 8%, D-Wave Down 7%, Rigetti Down 7% as Intel and Amazon Earnings Extend Tech Selloff

Key Takeaways

• IonQ fell 8% today with no news of its own, alongside D-Wave and Rigetti, as Intel's and Amazon's earnings deepened worries about AI spending.

• Quantum stocks are trading as a leveraged bet on the AI trade, and nothing in either report changes IonQ's business.

• Amazon's cloud grew 39% last quarter, and Intel's quantum push looks intact despite a weak outlook.

• IonQ's Nov. 5 report, its first with the SkyWater foundry, is the test that matters.

IonQ ( IONQ:NYSE )fell 8% this morning with no news of its own. It got caught in a tech selloff that Intel ( INTC:NASDAQ )and Amazon ( AMZN:NASDAQ )deepened with their earnings after Thursday's close.

Fellow quantum stocks went down with it: D-Wave Quantum ( QBTS:NASDAQ )is off 7%, and Rigetti Computing ( RGTI:NASDAQ )is down 7%.

Intel's quantum push survives a rough outlook

Intel sank 28% after guiding fourth-quarter revenue to $15.0 billion to $16.0 billion, below the third quarter's $16.5 billion, as PCs slow.

That matters to IonQ because Intel is now a quantum rival: it agreed to buy Classiq , in a deal Bloomberg reported at about $2.3 billion, to build a "full-stack quantum computing platform." A soft PC business won't starve that effort. Intel ended the quarter with $54.0 billion of cash and short-term investments, after a $23 billion stock sale.

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Amazon's cloud is still booming

Amazon fell 2% after its trailing-12-month free cash flow swung to a $42.4 billion outflow as AI spending climbed.

But Amazon Web Services, one of the clouds that rent out time on IonQ's machines, grew sales 39% in the third quarter, and CEO Andy Jassy projects growth "of over 40% both in 2027 and in 2028." Will that demand show up in IonQ's own cloud sales?

IonQ's outlook hasn't budged

Analysts expect IonQ's revenue to more than triple this year, to $455 million:

Nothing in Intel's or Amazon's reports should move these estimates. What has moved is what investors pay. IonQ's forward price/sales was 20x at Thursday's close, near its five-year low:

Today's drop takes it lower still. (Part of the slide comes from foundry sales , which BofA valued at 2x, and from a share count that has nearly doubled since the end of 2024.)

Nov. 5 is the real test

IonQ reports after the close on Nov. 5, and D-Wave and Rigetti follow on Nov. 10. Management expects about 100% organic growth this year, and second-quarter gross margin fell to 24.9% from 59.8% a year earlier. Those are the numbers to watch.