IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) Earns Buy Rating from Rosenblatt Securities

IonQ (NYSE:IONQ)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reiterated by equities researchers at Rosenblatt Securities in a report issued on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $100.00 target price on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities’ target price suggests a potential upside of 187.09% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities research analysts have also weighed in on the company. Mizuho decreased their price objective on IonQ from $61.00 to $52.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 9th. B. Riley Financial reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of IonQ in a research note on Wednesday, September 9th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 price target on shares of IonQ in a report on Wednesday, September 9th. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $70.00 price objective on shares of IonQ in a research report on Wednesday, September 9th. Finally, Northland Securities boosted their price target on shares of IonQ from $55.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, June 22nd. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, IonQ presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $63.83.

IonQ Trading Down 4.0%

Shares of IONQ stock traded down $1.44 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $34.83. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 9,409,992 shares, compared to its average volume of 24,455,678. The company has a market cap of $13.27 billion, a PE ratio of -7.49 and a beta of 3.36. The business has a fifty day moving average of $41.36 and a 200-day moving average of $44.78. IonQ has a 52 week low of $25.89 and a 52 week high of $81.08.

IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported ($0.33) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.56) by $0.23. IonQ had a negative return on equity of 22.29% and a negative net margin of 553.27%. The company had revenue of $80.05 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $66.47 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.70) EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 286.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that IonQ will post -2.11 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other IonQ news, insider John Raymond sold 2,407 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.21, for a total value of $89,564.47. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 77,741 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,892,742.61. The trade was a 3.00% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.55% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On IonQ

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund increased its stake in IonQ by 96.5% in the 1st quarter. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund now owns 125,556 shares of the company’s stock worth $3,620,000 after purchasing an additional 61,656 shares during the period. Simplicity Wealth LLC bought a new stake in IonQ in the second quarter valued at approximately $981,000. Swedbank AB boosted its stake in shares of IonQ by 147.7% during the first quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 149,503 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,310,000 after purchasing an additional 89,148 shares during the period. Weiss Asset Management LP purchased a new position in shares of IonQ in the first quarter valued at about $663,000. Finally, Virtus Advisers LLC purchased a new position in IonQ during the 2nd quarter valued at about $726,000. Institutional investors own 41.42% of the company’s stock.

IonQ News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting IonQ this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed its “buy” rating and assigned a $100 price target, indicating significant potential upside if IonQ executes on its growth strategy. Benzinga analyst report
• Positive Sentiment: Quantum networking breakthrough: IonQ reported achieving 1,032 entangled pairs per second—approximately a 1 kHz rate—between trapped-ion qubits and solid-state quantum memory. The development could support larger, networked quantum-computing systems. IonQ quantum interconnect breakthrough
• Positive Sentiment: Government opportunity: The Pentagon’s approximately $350 million quantum initiative and IonQ’s progress in DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative could lead to additional government contracts, although the timing and revenue impact remain uncertain. Pentagon quantum funding article
• Positive Sentiment: SkyWater partnership: D-Wave Quantum agreed to a multiyear arrangement with SkyWater Technology, which IonQ owns, highlighting SkyWater’s foundry capabilities and potentially strengthening IonQ’s position in the quantum supply chain. D-Wave and SkyWater partnership
• Neutral Sentiment: Elisity strategic rationale: IonQ plans to acquire zero-trust cybersecurity provider Elisity in an all-stock transaction valued at up to $1.3 billion, including as much as $150 million in performance-based earnouts. Management expects the combination to pair Elisity’s enterprise security platform with IonQ’s post-quantum cryptography and quantum key-distribution technologies. IonQ Elisity acquisition
• Negative Sentiment: Dilution concerns: Because IonQ is funding the Elisity purchase entirely with stock, investors are concerned about the number of new shares issued and whether the acquisition price is justified while IonQ remains unprofitable. The share issuance will be based on a 20-day average price within a collar of approximately $33.07 to $49.61, contributing to the selloff.
• Negative Sentiment: Execution and valuation risk: The transaction expands IonQ beyond quantum hardware into cybersecurity software, but integration costs, uncertain commercial quantum timelines and IonQ’s high valuation could limit near-term returns if Elisity fails to scale as expected.

About IonQ

IonQ, Inc is a quantum computing company that develops and commercializes quantum computers based on trapped-ion technology. Its systems are designed to perform specialized computations that may eventually support applications in areas such as optimization, materials science, drug discovery, financial modeling and artificial intelligence.

The company offers access to its quantum processors through cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services’ Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure Quantum and Google Cloud.