D-Wave Quantum: The 1,120% Bookings Surge That Wall Street Can't Quite Believe

D-Wave's bookings jump 1,120% but Q2 revenue misses, EBITDA loss widens, and valuation at 156x forward sales splits analysts.

There is a peculiar arithmetic at work in D-Wave Quantum's current market narrative: the company's order book is expanding at a pace that would make most growth stocks blush, yet the income statement reads like a company still searching for its first gear. That contradiction — a 1,120 percent jump in bookings against a flat revenue line — has split analysts, confused retail investors, and produced a stock that moves in both directions with equal conviction.

The numbers tell the story in stark relief. First-half bookings climbed 1,120 percent year over year, while remaining performance obligations — the contracted revenue sitting in the pipeline — surged 668 percent to $40.7 million. Those are the kind of figures that fuel gold-rush narratives. But the second quarter delivered just $3.08 million in revenue against analyst expectations of $4.03 million, and the EBITDA loss widened to $37.1 million. Gross margin slipped 840 basis points to 55.4 percent. As one analyst put it, demand is outrunning revenue — and the gap is getting harder to ignore.

A Valuation That Demands Faith

The market's ambivalence is baked into the multiples. D-Wave trades at 6.5 times book value, roughly double the software sector's average of 3.2 times. On forward revenue, the figure balloons to 156 times — a level that cannot be justified by anything on the current income statement. Investors paying those prices are not buying a balance sheet; they are buying a story about quantum computing becoming the next major computing infrastructure, in the same way that AI has driven entire industries toward data centers and chip capacity.

The problem is that D-Wave remains at the very beginning of commercialization, while the major AI cloud providers are already investing hundreds of billions of dollars. The company's recent appointment of Kevan P. Krysler as an independent Class I director signals preparation for a growth phase — a governance step typical of companies straddling startup energy and market maturity — but it does little to address the core valuation question.

The Analyst Split and the Insider Signal

The disagreement on Wall Street is visible in the ratings. Zacks Research downgraded the stock from "Strong Buy" to "Hold" after the earnings miss — the company lost $0.13 per share against an expected $0.10 loss. Yet the broader consensus remains "Moderate Buy" with a price target of $36.36. That divergence captures the fundamental tension: the order book says one thing, the P&L says another.

Adding to the mixed signals, insiders have sold more than $35 million worth of stock over the past 90 days. That is not necessarily an alarm bell — but it sits awkwardly against a narrative of imminent, sustainable growth. Meanwhile, institutional buyers have been quietly accumulating. Lisanti Capital Growth added roughly 113,000 shares for about $2.71 million in the second quarter, Csenge Advisory Group bought nearly 62,000 shares for $1.48 million, and Latash Investments picked up 26,000 shares for $629,000. Institutions now hold 42.47 percent of the company, which at least partially offsets the insider selling.

Real-World Validation, Macro Headwinds

On the technology side, there are tangible signs of progress. NTT DOCOMO has deployed a second production application using D-Wave's technology — evidence that the systems are moving beyond pilots into actual operational use. The company also received a $1.57 million grant from the US National Science Foundation for the ERASE project, led by Yale University, with D-Wave's Quantum Circuits subsidiary providing a platform for fault-tolerant gate-model quantum computing. CEO Alan Baratz framed the collaboration around technical foundations and workforce development. These initiatives do not generate revenue in the near term, but they strengthen the company's technological credibility.

The macro environment, however, is working against the stock. A sector-wide sell-off in quantum computing names has been underway, with the ten-year US Treasury yield hovering near 4.7 percent — a level that pressures unprofitable growth stocks across the board. Rigetti, IonQ, and QCI have all fallen in tandem, underscoring how sensitive the sector is to interest rate movements. There is no company-specific trigger; the pressure is systemic.

Reading the Charts

The price action reflects that nervousness. The stock slipped 2.8 percent on Thursday to €16.08, leaving it roughly 60 percent below its 52-week high of €40.41, set in October. At the same time, it trades about 45 percent above the €11.12 low marked in late March — suggesting some bottoming is underway, though the 15 percent gap below the 200-day average indicates the trend remains fragile.

On a seven-day basis the shares have lost about 10 percent, though they are up roughly 8 percent over the past month. Year to date, the stock is down 28 percent. At its current level of around €16.42, it sits about 8.6 percent below its 50-day average of €17.96 — a sign that short-term momentum is weak, even with the stock still 48 percent above its 52-week low.

The Bull Case, Such as It Is

There are those who see opportunity in the disconnect. One widely followed market narrative values D-Wave at roughly 54 percent below its fair value, based on a price target of $40.65. But of six common valuation criteria, the stock passes only one — a reminder that the optimistic view rests on very specific assumptions about future growth rather than solid current fundamentals.

The stock's all-time high of €40.41, reached in October 2025, now sits 59 percent above the current price — a reminder of how quickly euphoria can evaporate. For investors, the bet on D-Wave is not about this fiscal year. It is about whether an exploding order book can eventually translate into revenue that justifies the multiples. Until that conversion happens, the stock will remain what it has been all along: a wager on the future, priced in the present, and contested at every turn.