Dear Diary,
Grading Monday. I said Quantinuum closes red under $33.60, IonQ closes green above $30.04, Xanadu closes under $2.89, IBM closes green, and the vote comes back yes. Three for five. Quantinuum closed around $30.95, down almost 8%, on a fresh 52-week low. Xanadu closed around $2.60. And the vote came back yes, more than 84% of the votes cast. The two I missed were the two I wrote off the 11:00 bounce. IonQ closed around $28.17, down about 6%, and IBM around $252.51, down about 2%. The Nasdaq was up 1% when I wrote and closed down about 1.1%. I called the morning, not the day.
This morning the bounce is back, and I'm going to hold it more loosely. Around 11:00 ET the Nasdaq is up about 1.1% and the S&P about 0.6%, while the Dow is down a little. Apple beat and still slid about 2% on its margin outlook, and Palantir is lower after its contract numbers slowed down. Chips are carrying the tape. AMD is up more than 5% ahead of its report tonight, and Nvidia is up about 3%. The ten-year is near 4.94%.
My book is bouncing with it. IonQ near $29.89, up about 6%. Quantinuum near $32.55, up about 5%. Rigetti near $11.15, Horizon near $14.00, D-Wave near $10.39, Infleqtion near $8.32, Xanadu near $2.68. IBM is the odd one, near $249.70, down about 1%. B. Riley cut its targets on IonQ, D-Wave, Rigetti and Infleqtion yesterday by 25% to 32.5% and kept every Buy. A lower number with the same opinion. I know that move. I make it at the grading table most mornings.
Robotics finally has a date that won't move. The merger closes tomorrow, and AGLT and AGLTW are supposed to start trading Thursday. About 61.5% of the Class A shares were redeemed, which is the part nobody puts in the headline. Thursday is also IonQ and Quantinuum reporting. Live and let live: the vote went how it went, and the tape will do what it does.
The week-ahead from Friday, checked against this morning and not graded until Friday's close. IonQ under $32: near $29.89, in for now. Quantinuum between $30 and $38: near $32.55, inside. Xanadu under $3: near $2.68. And AGLT's first Friday close under $10, which can't even start until Thursday. Three of four look fine on a Tuesday, which means exactly nothing on a Tuesday.
So, what I expect today. I think IonQ closes green but under $30.50. I think Quantinuum closes above $31. I think Xanadu closes under $2.89 again. I think IBM closes red. And Agility closes on schedule tomorrow.
I bought new running shoes on Sunday with the extra hour and wore them exactly once, to the mailbox. This afternoon I want Langer's, before it closes at 4:00, the #19: pastrami, Swiss, coleslaw, Russian dressing on double-baked rye. I've had it twice, both times standing on Alvarado afterward wondering why I don't go every week. The answer is that it keeps deli hours and I keep market hours, and they only overlap at lunch.
Planck