D-Wave Quantum’s May 12 Earnings: The First Test in a Five-Week Gauging of the Bull Case

D-Wave Quantum stock rallies 25% in April as M&T Bank builds a $1.2M position. Focus shifts to Q1 bookings, which already exceed 2025 annual revenue, and upcoming Investor Day.

A quantum computing company burning through more than $70 million annually, with a market capitalization of roughly $7 billion and annual revenue of just $25 million, is not the usual recipe for institutional accumulation. Yet M&T Bank Corp quietly built a new position of about 45,000 shares in the fourth quarter, spending nearly $1.2 million. The disclosure, which surfaced in early May, adds a layer of credibility to a stock that has spent most of 2026 trying to claw back from a steep decline.

D-Wave Quantum shares have rallied 25 percent in April, but at around $20, they still trade roughly 60 percent below the 52-week high of $46.75 set in October 2025. That gap between momentum and peak is what makes the next two weeks particularly charged. On May 12, the company reports first-quarter 2026 results, followed by a conference call led by CEO Alan Baratz and CFO John Markovich. Three weeks later, on June 1, D-Wave holds its first-ever Investor Day at the New York Stock Exchange under the banner “The D-Wave Difference,” where management is expected to detail the Advantage2 system roadmap, the dual-platform strategy, and the integration of recently acquired Quantum Circuits Inc.

The Bookings Metric That Matters More Than Revenue

The real focus for analysts and investors is not the quarterly top line but the pace of new orders. In January and February alone, D-Wave announced $32.8 million in new bookings — a figure that already exceeds the company’s total 2025 annual revenue. If that cadence held through the first quarter, it would mark a genuine inflection point for a company that has long been valued on promise rather than performance. The gross margin, which stood at roughly 83 percent in the most recent period, will also be scrutinized as a measure of scalability.

The stock’s recent behavior suggests the market is pricing in optimism. Last week, shares jumped nearly 8 percent in a single session, closing at about $20. That kind of volatility ahead of an earnings release is typical for a name with a $7 billion market cap and a thin float, but it also reflects the binary nature of the upcoming events.

Analyst Views: Bullish Consensus, Wide Dispersion

Wall Street is broadly constructive but far from uniform. The average price target across analysts tracked by TipRanks stands at $36.91, implying roughly 80 percent upside from current levels. Mizuho recently trimmed its target from $40 to $31 but maintained an Outperform rating, with analyst Vijay Rakesh citing an early inflection point in the quantum computing market and D-Wave’s dual annealing and gate-model approach as a competitive edge. Northland, by contrast, rates the stock Market Perform with a $22 target. Zacks Research upgraded the shares from “Strong Sell” to “Hold,” pointing to technical progress and the two-platform strategy. Of the 15 analysts covering the stock, 13 rate it a Buy.

The Bear Case Has Teeth

Skeptics have concrete concerns. D-Wave diluted its share count by roughly 67 percent in fiscal 2025, a move that weighs on per-share metrics. The cash burn rate of more than $70 million per year is substantial, though the company holds a liquidity reserve of nearly $885 million, giving it an estimated eight to ten years of runway at current spending levels. A structural risk that has not yet been priced in: IonQ’s acquisition of SkyWater Technology, D-Wave’s primary semiconductor fabricator, could disrupt the supply chain or shift competitive dynamics.

Still, the bull case rests on the idea that quantum computing is approaching a commercial tipping point, and that D-Wave’s early lead in annealing systems and its growing gate-model capabilities position it to capture enterprise spending. The May 12 earnings report will show whether the booking momentum from the start of the year has continued. If it has, the June 1 Investor Day could take place in a very different atmosphere than the one that surrounds the stock today.