IonQ's sales are growing very fast, more than doubling year over year, and the amount of already-signed future work (its order backlog) is growing even faster than sales.
But the company is still spending far more cash than it brings in, and a large share of that spending is paying employees in stock rather than cash, which keeps adding new shares and shrinking each existing shareholder's slice of the company.
The stock's price already assumes IonQ keeps growing at an extremely high rate for years and eventually becomes very profitable, something no company in this brand-new industry has proven it can do yet.
Overvalued: the price is asking investors to pay far more today than the current business, even with its fast growth, appears to be worth.
IonQ makes money by selling time on its quantum computers (including through cloud partners like Amazon and Microsoft), by selling physical quantum computer systems directly to customers such as government research labs and universities, and through research contracts, often with defense and science agencies. It has also been buying smaller quantum technology companies to add new capabilities like quantum networking and sensing.
We'd revisit this call if the price falls below $14.00 or rises above $38.00.
These are review triggers for us to take another look, not price targets or a promise the stock will reach them.
| Metric | IONQ (subject) | Peer median |
|---|---|---|
| EV/Sales | 118.02x | 23.62x |
| EV/EBIT | -24.21x | 38.03x |
| EV/EBITDA | -27.81x | 37.22x |
| P/B | 4.30x | 20.61x |
| Gross Margin | 40.4% | 58.6% |
| ROIC | -20.8% | 24.5% |
| ROE | -13.4% | 29.0% |
| Rule of 40 | -343.5% | 31.0% |
IonQ's FY2025 10-K (filed 2026-02-26, SEC EDGAR) reports $130.0 million revenue (+202% YoY) and a 40.4% gross margin, both matching the automated screen exactly. Net loss for FY2025 was approximately $510-512 million (IonQ Form ARS FY2025; stocktitan summary of the same 10-K), against an accumulated deficit of $1,194.1 million as of 2025-12-31. Critically, the automated screen's revenue_ttm and fcf_ttm fields are FY2025 year-end snapshots, not a true trailing-twelve-months as of today (2026-07-07); IonQ has already reported Q1 2026 (10-Q filed ~2026-05, period ended 2026-03-31).
Q1 2026 revenue was $64.7 million, up 755% YoY vs Q1 2025's $7.6 million (IonQ Q1 2026 and Q1 2025 earnings releases). True TTM revenue through Q1 2026 is about $187.1 million ($130.0M FY2025 minus $7.6M Q1 2025 plus $64.7M Q1 2026), 44% above the automated screen's $130.0 million. FY2026 guidance, raised after Q1, is $260-270 million revenue (over 100% organic growth) with an adjusted EBITDA loss of $310-330 million. FY2025 total operating costs and expenses were $473.2 million.
FY2025 operating cash flow was -$283.2 million (confirmed vs the automated screen and yfinance). Capex was only $16.4 million; SBC was $312.0 million, larger than total revenue. An after-SBC free cash flow measure (OCF minus SBC minus capex) equals -$611.6 million for FY2025, exactly matching the automated screen's fcf_ttm_after_sbc. But Q1 2026 alone had OCF of -$151.0 million, SBC of $120.7 million, and capex of $8.4 million (after-SBC FCF near -$280 million for one quarter). Rolling forward gives a true TTM after-SBC FCF through Q1 2026 of roughly -$825 million, about 35% more negative than the automated screen's figure. Cash burn, especially SBC, is accelerating faster than revenue.
Total cash, cash equivalents and investments were $3.3 billion at 2025-12-31 and $3.1 billion at 2026-03-31, after a $2.0 billion equity offering closed 2025-10-14. the automated screen's cash field ($1.03 billion) appears to capture only the narrow cash-and-equivalents line, materially understating total liquidity/runway. Debt is minimal (~$30 million). Shares outstanding grew from 221.9 million (2024) to 366.6 million (2026-02-18, 10-K cover) to 373.2 million (2026-03-31, 10-Q cover), driven mainly by the $1.075 billion, largely all-stock acquisition of Oxford Ionics (completed September 2025) plus ongoing at-the-market issuance.
True TTM revenue ~$187.1M vs $43.1M FY2024; SBC/revenue ~240% (FY2025) and ~187% (Q1 2026); backlog (RPO) $470M at Q1 2026 (+554% YoY); commercial revenue ~60% of total; international ~35%; diluted share count +68% cumulative since end-2024; cash+investments $3.1B.
True quantum-computing peers, not the automated screen's SIC-fallback mega-cap semis set: Rigetti Computing (RGTI): FY2025 revenue $7.09 million, actually down 34% YoY, market cap ~$6.34 billion (implied EV/sales ~890x). D-Wave Quantum (QBTS): FY2025 revenue $24.6 million (+179% YoY), market cap ~$7.8-10 billion in mid-2026 (implied EV/sales ~280-400x). IonQ, using true TTM revenue of ~$187 million and an EV of roughly $13.7 billion (market cap ~$16.8 billion less ~$3.1 billion net cash), trades near 70-90x trailing sales, the richest revenue base of the three but the least extreme multiple, suggesting the whole pure-play quantum sector is priced on speculative optionality rather than current financials.
A bipartisan National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act (S.3597, introduced 2026-01-08, advanced by Senate Commerce and House Science committees through April-May 2026) would authorize about $2.7 billion in federal quantum R&D funding through 2030, a durable tailwind for government-linked quantum revenue. As a long-duration, pre-profit growth stock, IonQ remains sensitive to the broader rate and risk-appetite cycle; no company-specific rate disclosure was found.
CEO Niccolo De Masi's only 2026 Form 4 filings found were routine RSU-vesting tax-withholding sales (2026-03-11 at $34.80/share; 2026-06-11 at $56.21/share), not discretionary open-market sales. No insider open-market buying was found. A full officer/director Form 4 sweep beyond the CEO was not exhaustively completed; labeled UNAVAILABLE beyond what is cited here.
Catalysts: Tempo/Forte hardware roadmap (100 algorithmic qubits demonstrated; targeting 2 million physical / ~80,000 logical qubits by 2030 per management); DARPA HARQ program selection; $39 million Space Development Agency HALO contract; first 6th-generation 256-qubit chip-based system sale to University of Cambridge (all per Q1 2026 investor materials, 2026-05-06). Risks: no disclosed path to profitability before the 2030 fault-tolerance milestone; continued heavy dilution; well-capitalized rivals (Google, IBM, Amazon Braket) subsidized by profitable parent businesses.
Against the overvalued thesis: revenue and backlog are genuinely accelerating faster than the automated screen's stale data implies, cash runway (~$3.1B) is much longer than the automated screen's cash field suggests, and government/defense demand looks structurally durable. For the thesis: SBC now exceeds 100% of revenue, dilution is compounding, and quantum computing has no proven, broad commercial ROI yet.
See normalized_fair_value_range. Price above ~$38 (bull case) signals the market is pricing near-flawless execution; price below ~$14 (bear case) would signal capitulation on the growth story itself.
Mechanical model output, a screen, not a fair value.conservative screen, understates growth/AI-capex names
Even after correcting Layer 1's stale trailing-twelve-month figures with the actual Q1 2026 10-Q, IonQ trades at roughly 70-90x true trailing revenue and continues to burn cash (after stock compensation) at an accelerating rate, a combination the current price only justifies if near-flawless 100%+ growth persists for years without a credible near-term profit path.
Research flagged that one or more mechanical-screen inputs look invalid or distorted (e.g. a data-extraction issue or a capex/FCF definition mismatch); the research verdict was independently re-derived from primary filings, not just a check on the same numbers.
Confidence = 0.7 × research sub-score + 0.3 × mechanical sub-score. Mechanical sub-score rewards the Layer 1 screen for agreeing with Layer 2's direction (corroboration), not just for being conviction=NORMAL in isolation.