Why Is Rigetti Computing Stock Falling?
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Rigetti Computing (RGTI) stock fell 68.2% in the year to October 22, 2026, while the S&P 500 returned 15.7%. The company’s sales grew over that year, so the fall has more to do with what investors will pay for those sales than with the sales themselves. News reports on October 23, 2025, put the stock’s one-year run at more than 5,500%, and its highest close of the past year, $44.27, came on October 31, 2025. So how much less are investors now paying for each dollar of Rigetti’s sales?
Rigetti Stock Costs Far Less Per Dollar Of Sales
At the end of September 2025, three weeks before the one-year window above opens, investors paid 1,292 times Rigetti’s trailing twelve-month sales for the stock. At the October 22, 2026 close, they paid 286.5 times. The business did not shrink over that stretch: revenue for the twelve months to June 2026 rose 68.5% from a year earlier to $13.4 million.
Other quantum stocks lost favor too. IonQ, another quantum computing company, fell 44% over the same year, and D-Wave Quantum fell 57%. Rigetti fell further than both. Even after the drop, Rigetti’s multiple of 286.5 times is far above the 3.1 times sales the S&P 500 trades at.
What Rigetti Reported And Announced Over Twelve Months
On January 9, 2026, the company pushed back the date for general availability of its 108-qubit system, Cepheus-1-108Q. Fourth-quarter 2025 revenue of $1.87 million then came in below the $2.37 million analysts expected. News reports on March 5, 2026, said the miss sent the shares 9% lower in early trading, and the stock closed the day down 4.4%.
On May 21, 2026, Rigetti announced a letter of intent under which the Department of Commerce selected it for up to $100 million in funding over three years, and the shares rose 30.6% that day. In September 2026, Rigetti announced a definitive agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, yet the stock closed at its lowest level of the past year on October 22.
Second-quarter 2026 revenue rose 185.3% from a year earlier to $5.14 million. Management said on the August 6, 2026 call that the increase came from on-premises Novera QPU sales. Rigetti also has an $8.4 million C-DAC order for a 108-qubit system in India, which management expects to recognize in the fourth quarter of 2026. That single order is worth more than all of Rigetti’s second-quarter revenue. Management said its revenue continues to be influenced by the timing of system deliveries and government-funded projects.
What The Fall Has Not Changed At Rigetti
Rigetti still loses far more than it sells. Its operating loss over the twelve months to June 2026 was $97.2 million, against $77.4 million a year earlier, so the loss widened even as revenue grew.
The company held $394 million in cash and short-term investments at the end of June 2026, against $7.7 million of debt. Its share count has risen, however. Diluted shares reached 333 million, up from 298 million a year earlier. Management said on the August call, a month before the September agreement, that any final government deal would include issuing securities to the department.
Over the year, investors cut what they pay for Rigetti’s sales, but the losses stayed far larger than those sales. Rigetti’s operating loss is the figure to watch in its next report, expected in November 2026.
Does This Mean You Should Act On RGTI?
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