TLDR
- Quantinuum (QNT) closed up 11% at $36.68 on Thursday after Morgan Stanley upgraded it to Overweight from Equal-Weight.
- The bank cut its price target to $62 from $78 but still sees big upside from current levels.
- QNT has the lowest multiple in its peer group, and insiders have bought about $24.7 million in stock.
- IonQ (IONQ) stays at Equal-Weight, with its target lowered to $43 from $49.
- The Sol system, due in 2027, is seen as the next catalyst.
Quantinuum (QNT) stock closed at $36.68 on Thursday, up 11%, after Morgan Stanley moved it to Overweight from Equal-Weight. The bank called it its “top quantum play.”
Quantinuum Inc. Class A Common Stock, QNT
The rally came on a soft day for tech. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 both traded lower, so this one was all about the company.
Investing.com reported the stock was up 4.5% in pre-open trading. The gains grew from there.
Morgan Stanley trimmed its price target to $62 from $78. That is still far above where the stock trades.
The cut reflects a slide since the June IPO. Before Thursday, the stock sat near its 52-week low of $33.02, so the bounce was a welcome change.
Why the Bank Turned Positive
Analyst Joseph Moore said Quantinuum leads pure-play peers in technology and execution. It also has the lowest multiple against 2030 revenue estimates.
“The market is least confident in Quantinuum,” the analysts wrote. They see the gap between their view and the market’s as larger here than for any rival.
Error correction is the company’s main strength. The analysts also like its published technical results, which they say stand out when peers make big claims.
Insiders have been buying. They picked up about $24.7 million in stock over the past year, with no reported sales.
Quantinuum is now the only Buy-rated quantum stock in the bank’s coverage. IonQ, Infleqtion (INFQ) and Xanadu all sit at Equal-Weight.
How Rivals Fared
IonQ (IONQ) closed at $34.35 and got a lower target of $43 from $49. That still implies about 25% upside.
The bank says IonQ has the strongest outside validation of its scaling plan. It still trails Quantinuum on technology, and it has yet to repeat past error-correction results on Superion.
Infleqtion rose 4% to $9.48, while Xanadu gained 5% to $3.34. Morgan Stanley sees Xanadu landing anywhere from $1 to $9.
The Helios system produced 48 error-corrected logical qubits at launch in late 2025. Sol and Apollo, due in 2027 and 2029, are expected to reach the hundreds.
CEO Rajeeb Hazra told Barron’s the company now builds on one architecture instead of restarting each generation. “The hardest challenges now are engineering challenges,” he said.
Morgan Stanley sees the biggest revenue chance for Quantinuum in 2030, in a $10 billion market. It projects $100 billion by 2040.
Sol is the next catalyst, and a delay to Apollo is the main risk. QNT closed Thursday at $36.68, up 11%.
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