Quantum computing stocks just erased all their Nvidia-induced losses thanks to D-Wave's surge
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The next time someone offers you a penny for your thoughts, it might be a limited-time offer. America will soon stop making cents: the Treasury will stop adding new pennies into circulation by early next year. The reality is, making coins is expensive. Each penny costs more than three cents to make, and you won't believe how much it costs to make a nickel — see the cost of coins, charted.
US stocks stumbled into the close yesterday, unable to hold onto solid daily gains and ending virtually unchanged. The S&P 500 and Russell 2000 finished the session marginally in the red, while the Nasdaq 100 mustered a 0.2% advance. It's the first three-day losing streak for the benchmark US stock index since the S&P 500 fell four days in a row following the unveiling of reciprocal tariffs on April 2.
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Finance doesn't lend itself well to epic David vs. Goliath stories. But one of the more compelling story arcs you'll see this year — what's played out between D-Wave Quantum and Nvidia — looks a lot like this, only it's missing a dead giant.
The former was a $500 million relative pip-squeak heading into 2025; the latter, of course, is a $3 trillion behemoth.
In early January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang remarked that it would probably be decades before quantum computers would be "very useful."D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz came out and argued that Huang's comments might be right when it comes to his competitors,but not his own: businesses were already using D-Wave to help them solve real-world optimization problems.
Traders agreed with the mighty giant, Huang, not the lesser-known Baratz, and D-Wave's shares sank 60% in four sessions, with others in the space seeing similarly large sell-offs. The fact that quantum stocks enjoyed across-the-board surges after Google's quantum chip breakthrough last November likely also played a big role in how the air came out of the communal balloon.
And when Nvidia tried to make up with the industry by hosting a "Quantum Day" in March where it announced a new quantum research center in Boston, D-Wave was left out of that consortium.
Along the way, though, the San Jose-based firm made a number of breakthroughs to separate itself from the rest of the quantum pack:
Fast-forward to Thursday and major pure-play quantum computing stocks have, as a group, made up all the ground they lost since Huang's comments, and that's largely down to D-Wave, which is up more than 500% off its lows of the year! See it charted here.
THE TAKEAWAY
Whatever happens next with D-Wave — whether the stock is too richly valued and comes down to earth or if rivals make technological advances that fuel more commercial success — the story of an underdog challenging an established, dominant force, backing up talk with action, and being rewarded for it is something that doesn't come around too often.
🎮 Celebrity-Backed Startup Raises $40M to Transform Gaming
Meet Virtuix. It's the company behind Omni, a leading omni-directional treadmill that lets players walk and run in 360 degrees inside VR games and simulations.
How's It Going?
✅ $18M+ in lifetime revenue1 — with products sold to major companies like Dave & Buster's. ✅ Omni One launched September 2024 —Virtuix's first home system, following 3,000+ preorders worth $7M+ in revenue. ✅ Military Expansion —developing VR training systems in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force. ✅ Industry-Leading IP—24 patents issued, 8 pending, covering motion tracking, game integration, and mechanical design.
The Even More Exciting News?
With$40M+ raised across all offerings and from well-known investors like Maveron, and Scout Ventures, Virtuix is offering investors the chance to own a stake in the future of immersive entertainment. Round closing soon.2
Novo Nordisk is having a sale on its blockbuster medication Wegovy right as the pharmacies that were eating into its business by selling copies of the active ingredient can no longer mass-produce knockoffs.
As of Thursday, compounding pharmacies — think all those apps promising speedy access to drugs — can't sell exact copies of semaglutide, which means all the services promising cheap, off-brand drugsare now in the lurch, as are their customers, one would imagine.
In a clever bid to both knife the competition and score a host of new customers, Novo has timed this particular sale incredibly well.
For the first month, if you pay in cash you can get a month of Wegovy for $199, after which it can be had for $499 a month. For those on insurance, the cost is upward of $1,000 per month.
What's even more interesting is how some of the pharmacies are handling it. For some, it appears to be business as usual, and as of Thursday morning, Hims still offered personalized compounded semaglutide to those that fill out its onboarding questionnaire.
THE TAKEAWAY
Wegovy is a make-or-break drug for Novo Nordisk, and the competition is heating up in the bare-knuckle weight-loss injection business. Sales of Eli Lilly's Zepbound have shot up over the course of the past year, and Novo isn't afraid to do everything necessary to stay in the fight: just two weeks ago, the company canned its CEO of nearly nine years over the lost ground.
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OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it's buying former Apple design lead Jony Ive's AI device startup for $6.5 billion. Ive's startup, io, would provide OpenAI with a dedicated unit for developing AI-powered devices, and we now know a little bit moreabout what the first of a "family of devices" might look like.
2 Please read the offering circular and related risks at the StartEngine webpage for Virtuix. This is a paid advertisement for Virtuix's Regulation CF Offering. This Reg CF offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC.
Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities.
This was a paid for ad. Sherwood Media has been compensated for this ad by the Virtuix Reg CF Campaign hosted on StartEngine.
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