Quantum trade moves beyond science fiction: AlphaCheck

Quantum trade moves beyond science fiction: AlphaCheck

Grace O'Donnell · Editor, Special Projects

Tue, August 11, 2026 at 6:24 PM GMT+3 3 min read

Good morning. Stocks wavered on Tuesday. Reports of progress on Middle East peace talks remained top of mind, as investors watched for swings in oil prices, which remained subdued in the first hour of trading.

Here's a check of the markets in early trading, as of 11:00 a.m. ET, based on a heat map powered by Yahoo Finance AlphaSpace data.

Industrial (XLI) stocks climbed, leading the major S&P 500 sectors, while consumer staples (XLP) were on the back foot. Within tech, semiconductor hardware companies continued to rally.

Here are the top stocks Yahoo Finance readers viewed this morning: Oracle (ORCL), Broadcom (AVGO), Cerebras (CBRS), Blackstone (BX), and SolarEdge (SEDG).

1 trend we're watching: 2 quantum earnings reports test choppy trade

Two newly public quantum computing companies are about to report earnings. Their results will test the appetite for the budding technology that has captivated some corners on Wall Street.

Quantinuum (QNT), a company that spun off from Honeywell (HON) in 2021 and made its public debut in June, opens its books for the first time as a public company on Tuesday after the market close. Infleqtion (INFQ), which went public in February via a SPAC merger, reports on Wednesday.

Quantum computing promises to solve more complex calculations than classical computers (my colleague Dan Howley explains why here). As the technology evolves from science fiction to a frontier market with real applications, companies with different approaches in the field are jostling to become the quantum leader.

They're also trying to compete with the research labs of the big fish in the space that carry huge balance sheet advantages — Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), and IBM (IBM), to name a few.

That was apparent on the latest round of earnings calls from other quantum pure-play companies, such as D-Wave (QBTS), Rigetti (RGTI), and Quantum Computing Inc. (QUBT).

They sang the same refrain: Commercial interest in quantum computing is growing, and our company is the differentiated business that can win.

Some companies, like Rigetti, touted speed, while others, like D-Wave, boasted about their error detection. Yet another company, Quantum Computing, hailed its room-temperature photonic architecture, which it says is more cost-effective.

They all agreed that this year marks a turning point for the industry, particularly after the Trump administration provided funding to nine companies in exchange for equity stakes in May.

"The quantum computing market is reaching an important inflection point," D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz said on the company's earnings call on Aug. 6. "Scientific progress is accelerating, customer interest is expanding and a growing number of companies are entering the public markets. That increased visibility is good for the industry, but it also means investors need to separate measurable progress from rhetoric."

Investors have alternated between bidding up quantum stocks in search of the next Nvidia (NVDA) and selling them amid skepticism around their long-term profitability potential.

Quantinuum and Infleqtion soared over the summer, leading the quantum stock rally following a series of White House executive orders. But they are currently down by 18% for the year.

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