Let’s get one thing straight. A company called Rigetti Computing sold two machines—two—for a grand total of $5.7 million. In response, the market, in its infinite wisdom, decided the company was worth billions more than it was the day before, sending the stock into the stratosphere and its market cap to a staggering $11.5 billion.
Read that again. An $11.5 billion valuation for a company that pulled in a measly $1.8 million in revenue last quarter while burning through nearly $40 million. This isn't a business. This is a science project funded by a stock market that has completely, utterly lost its mind.
The numbers are so comical they feel like a typo. A price-to-sales ratio of 981x. For context, that’s like paying the price of a brand-new Ferrari for a single Hot Wheels car. The car might be a perfect miniature replica, a marvel of tiny engineering, but it’s still a toy. And right now, Rigetti’s stock is the market’s favorite new toy, and everyone’s desperate to play with it before someone’s mom calls them in for dinner.
A Rocket Emoji to the Moon
You can practically smell the desperation. The trading volume on October 2nd was north of 140 million shares, triple the average. You don’t see numbers like that because a bunch of sober, long-term investors suddenly had a collective epiphany about 9-qubit quantum computers. No. That’s the unmistakable stench of FOMO—the Fear Of Missing Out—wafting up from the retail trading swamps.
This is a meme stock. Let's not pretend it's anything else. The surge has all the hallmarks: a parabolic chart, insane volume, and a complete and total detachment from any recognizable financial reality. It’s driven by a story, a dream of "getting in on the ground floor" of the next big thing. People aren't buying a company; they're buying a lottery ticket with "QUANTUM" printed on it in shiny letters.
And offcourse, the Wall Street analysts are playing their part perfectly. All six of them are screaming "Buy!" or "Outperform!" from the rooftops. It’s a fantastic bit of theater. But look closer at their 12-month price targets. The consensus is somewhere around $20-$22. The stock is currently trading near $37. So what they’re really saying is, "You should definitely buy this, but we also think it’s going to be worth about half of what you’re paying for it in a year." This is just a pathetic attempt to avoid looking stupid if the rocket ship keeps flying, while giving them an out when it inevitably crashes back to Earth. This is a bad idea. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire of financial advice.
What are these two magic boxes even for? The buyers—an unnamed Asian tech firm and some AI startup in California—plan to use them for "internal research" and "error-correction R&D." That’s the corporate-speak translation for: "We don't know how to make money with this thing yet, but it looks cool in the lab." Are we really valuing a company at $11.5 billion based on its potential to help two other companies do their homework?
The Insiders Aren't Buying the Hype
If you want the real story, don’t watch the ticker, watch the insiders. While the Reddit crowd was busy slapping diamond-hand emojis on their posts, Rigetti’s own directors and its CFO were quietly selling. In September alone, they cashed out over $3 million worth of shares.
Think about that. The people with the deepest possible insight into the company’s technology, its prospects, and its real-world trajectory are taking profits. They’re selling their lottery tickets while the mob is lining up around the block to buy them at an inflated price. Does that sound like a vote of confidence in an $11.5 billion valuation? Or does it sound like smart money getting out while the getting is good? I mean, it ain't rocket science...
The company is hemorrhaging cash. Sure, they have a healthy bank account for now, thanks to a recent equity offering where they diluted the hell out of their existing shareholders. But that $571 million is a war chest for survival, not a treasure chest of profits. It’s the fuel they’ll burn while they try to turn their science project into an actual, viable business. A business that, I’ll remind you, currently loses more than $20 for every $1 it makes in revenue.
All the other news—the partnership with Quanta, the MOU in India, the Air Force contract—it’s all just noise. It’s PR designed to keep the narrative going, to feed the hype machine that’s currently propping up the stock price. While some reports claim that Rigetti (RGTI) Quantum Computing Stock Soars on Major Orders and Partnerships - ts2.tech, these are positive developments for a small R&D company, but they are rounding errors for an $11.5 billion behemoth. It feels like we're celebrating a kid who built a great baking soda volcano while valuing him as the second coming of Elon Musk. And honestly... I'm just tired of it.
This Is Just a Casino with Extra Steps
Let's be brutally honest. The people buying RGTI at these levels aren't investing. They're gambling. They're betting that someone even more foolish will come along and buy the shares from them at an even higher price before the music stops. The underlying technology might be revolutionary in a decade, but the stock price today is a work of pure fiction. I've seen this movie before with dot-coms, with 3D printing, with cannabis stocks. The story is always the same, and it never ends well for the people who mistake a hype cycle for a sound investment. Maybe I’m the crazy one, but I’d rather put my money on something that actually, you know, makes money.