Rigetti Computing Stock Plunged 42% Last Month. Here's Why.

Shares of quantum computing expert Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) fell 42.2% in November 2025, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The bearish timeline included a disappointing earnings report, which erased October's 48.6% gain and then some. Rigetti's stock lost 14.2% of its value across the two-month span from Sept. 30 to Nov. 29.

Rigetti's Q3 report -- a quantum leap in the wrong direction

The most recent linchpin of Rigetti's November retreat was found in the company's Q3 2025 report, published on Nov. 10. It was a doozy, and not in a good way.

Q3 revenues fell 18% year over year, stopping at $1.95 million. Net losses multiplied from $14.8 million to $201.0 million. Free cash flows didn't exactly save the day, either. The company burned $19.7 million of cash in the quarter.

The cash hit was smaller than the bottom-line earnings figure, which included a $149 million non-cash expense for derivative warrant liabilities -- a downside of skyrocketing stock prices. As of Dec. 3, including November's painful correction, Rigetti's stock still rose 729.3% over the last 52 weeks. Apart from this accounting quirk, the largest expense on Rigetti's income statement was $15.0 million of research and development (R&D) costs.

Investors were hardly impressed. At this point, Rigetti still looks more like an early stage quantum computing research outfit than a serious commercial force. The company is selling a handful of systems, but the computers themselves are incredibly expensive and years away from technical advantages over old-school digital computers.

Rigetti's stock accelerated a milder downswing on the news. Three days later, the stock was down by 28.3%.

The speculative quantum computing story feels eerily familiar

Rigetti is going through some growing pains these days. Besides developing an effective business plan and promising quantum computing methods, it must deal with unreasonable investor expectations in the red-hot spotlight of Wall Street.

You've seen this kind of thing before. Cannabis stocks have taken a couple of turns through this cycle, as have cryptocurrencies and electric vehicle builders. I could keep going and you would nod in recognition at each much-too-early investor furor around The Next Big Thing (registered trademark). Some of these skyrocketing phenoms eventually find their footing with a mature business plan and real financial results. Others are not so lucky. It's almost impossible in the early going to tell the future bankruptcies apart from the long-term winners.

I like what Rigetti is doing in many ways. The company is developing a full stack of quantum computing hardware, software, systems, and services while its pure-play peers focus on smaller portions of that business spectrum. Its stock sales are quite dilutive for current shareholders as the share count rose 73% over the last year, but Rigetti compiled a robust cash cushion that way. With $559 million of cash equivalents and investments on its most recent balance sheet, Rigetti can afford to burn plenty of cash for years to come.

Image source: Getty Images.

But I can't guarantee that Rigetti will be among those long-term winners I'm looking for. It's just too early to make large-scale investments in this emerging technology. Remember Canopy Growth and Aurora Cannabis? Less than 10 years ago, these former cannabis giants had market caps of $20 billion and $11 billion, respectively. The good times didn't last. Now they're microcaps, more than 99.5% below those lofty highs.

I'm not looking for the next Aurora Cannabis or Canopy Growth opportunity in the quantum computing industry. Rigetti might turn out all right in the long run, but I'm just not sure yet. The stock may see the occasional growth spurt in the next few years but the broader price trend should be deeply negative.

I'm neither buying nor shorting Rigetti's stock in this price dip. Both moves are too risky for my taste.

Anders Bylund has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.