D-Wave Quantum: Inside the Insider Sales That Tell a Different Story Than the Headlines

The stock chart tells one story — a 6.16% Friday rally, a 14.37% weekly gain, and a market that seems willing to forgive a messy earnings print. But the insider transaction filings tell another. Over the past 90 days, three D-Wave Quantum executives have sold a net $1.74 million worth of company stock, including Chairman and CEO Alan Baratz and CFO John Markovich. That disconnect — between the public growth narrative and the private profit-taking — is arguably the more telling signal for investors than any single quarterly metric.

The Bookings Story Is Genuinely Impressive

D-Wave’s second-quarter report, released Thursday, showed revenue essentially flat at $3.1 million, while the loss per share of $0.13 came in roughly 30% wider than the $0.10 analysts had penciled in. The stock dipped on the news before recovering. But the headline numbers obscure what’s happening beneath the surface: first-half bookings exploded to $35.5 million from $2.9 million a year earlier — a jump of more than 1,120%. The backlog of remaining performance obligations hit $40.7 million as of June 30, up 668% year over year, with roughly 57% of that expected to convert to revenue within twelve months.

CEO Alan Baratz framed the quarter as confirmation of “the strength and breadth of D-Wave’s leadership position,” pointing to expanded commercial momentum and milestones along the company’s dual technology roadmap.

Big Names Are Signing Up

The customer mix adds weight to that claim. Forbes Global 2000 companies accounted for 47.7% of quarterly revenue, up from 20.4% a year ago. Productive application counts tripled, and quarterly bookings rose 1,120%. This is no longer a niche experiment — it’s increasingly enterprise reality.

The partnership pipeline has been equally active. On July 27, AT&T expanded its use of D-Wave’s quantum technology for network operations, having demonstrated that a network optimization task could be compressed from roughly one hour to under 15 seconds. The collaboration is now extending into fault detection, technician dispatch planning, and traffic management. Days later, on August 3, Nasdaq Verafin signed on to test D-Wave’s annealing technology for fraud and money-laundering detection in a proof-of-concept. Since the AT&T announcement, shares have climbed 14.4%.

External validation arrived via the IDC MarketScape 2026 report, which placed D-Wave among just two companies in the “Leaders” category for quantum computing — a nod to both current capabilities and future strategy.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying D-Wave Quantum?

A Clumpy Business Model, By Design

Management remains measured about the path ahead. Two system deliveries are slated for Q4 2026, though revenue recognition may stretch into 2027. The company models two to three system sales per year at prices between $20 million and $40 million per unit — a business of few, very large tickets that will inevitably arrive in lumpy fashion. That’s the nature of the model, and it explains why the income statement lags the bookings momentum.

Wall Street Splits on the Story

Analyst reactions to the quarter were decidedly mixed. Canaccord’s Kingsley Crane trimmed his price target from $41 to $35 but kept a Buy rating. Roth Capital cut its target from $40 to $30. Northland Securities downgraded to Hold, while Rosenblatt Securities initiated with a Buy and Evercore ISI reaffirmed its Buy. Wedbush’s Matt Bryson initiated coverage on August 3 with an Outperform rating and a $40 target. Jefferies also trimmed its target. The resulting target range across firms: $30 to $40, with buy ratings still numerically dominant.

The Insider Counterweight

The insider selling deserves context. HR chief Sophie C. Ames disposed of 3,070 shares on July 20 at a weighted average price of $16.9517 — executed automatically via a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, meaning it was pre-scheduled rather than opportunistic. That softens the drama somewhat, but the aggregate picture remains: the people closest to the business are taking some chips off the table.

Sector Headwinds and the Road Ahead

The broader quantum sector has cooled considerably. D-Wave shares are down 20.96% year to date, and peers Infleqtion and Rigetti Computing have also suffered significant losses as investor enthusiasm for pure-play quantum names has faded — even as projected U.S. defense spending on quantum technology is expected to rise 68% to $567 million, pending congressional debate this year.

Technically, the stock sits below its 50-day moving average of $18.94, suggesting the recovery isn’t fully confirmed. Annualized volatility of roughly 106% underscores how sentiment-driven these shares remain.

The next inflection point arrives November 5, when third-quarter results will test whether the bookings surge can translate into actual revenue. For now, D-Wave presents two truths simultaneously: the operational story is genuinely improving, and the people best positioned to know it are selling into the strength. Investors who choose to participate should do so with eyes wide open to the volatility that comes with the territory.