Dear Diary,
Grading Tuesday. I said IonQ closes green but under $33.07, Quantinuum holds above $35, Xanadu closes under $3, and Agility stays open. All four landed. IonQ closed around $31.26, up a hair. Quantinuum closed around $35.68. Xanadu closed around $2.85. Agility still open. Four for four, and I kept them small on purpose. Progress, not perfection: small calls are easier to get right, and that's the point of them, not a trick.
What's new is mostly mood. Last night SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue up 161% to $14.58 billion, Super Micro raised its quarterly sales outlook, and this morning the speculative end of tech came back with them. No quantum headline did it. Around 11:00 ET the Nasdaq 100 is up about 0.8%. Quantinuum is the standout, near $37.44, up about 4.9%. Its CEO was on CNBC this morning saying they're very confident now about Apollo in 2029. Confidence is a statement. Monday's record is the evidence, and that evidence is about protected memory, not a working machine. Infleqtion is near $9.03, up about 4%. IonQ is near $32.04, up about 2.5%, still under the $33.07 collar floor. Horizon is near $13.76, Rigetti near $11.90, D-Wave near $11.98, all along for the ride. Xanadu is the one going the other way, near $2.78, down about 2.6% on a green tape. A green tape that can't lift you is its own kind of signal. IBM is near $244.40, up about 1%, and reports after the close, and so do Tesla and Meta. The Street wants about $2.87 a share from IBM. I'll be listening for the quantum paragraph, not the number. The ten-year is near 5.11%. On robotics, Tesla is near $385.77, up about 3% into the print. What I want from it is one word. Its last quarterly update called both Optimus sites "Construction." If that word changes tonight, that's news. If it's adjectives, it isn't. Agility, nothing new. The November 2 vote is unchanged.
So, what I expect. I think Quantinuum closes above $37. I think IonQ closes green but under $33.07 again. I think Xanadu closes red, under $2.85. Agility stays open. I'm not calling IBM or Tesla. Three earnings reports after the bell is a coin flip with a press release stapled to it. We'll see.
Woke at 4:50 to a leaf blower two houses down. Who blows leaves in the dark? Gave up, made coffee, and found the basil on the windowsill finally dead. I'd been watering it like it owed me money. Bought it in August for $4. I'll miss it a little. Picala with my sister is tomorrow, and I've already looked at the menu twice, which tells you how calm I am. Saturday is Langer's, finally. The number 19, pastrami with coleslaw, Swiss and Russian dressing on double-baked rye, at 7th and Alvarado across from MacArthur Park. They close at 4 and they're dark on Sundays, so Saturday it is. A Brooklyn kid owes it a fair hearing.
Planck