Shares of major quantum computing companies fell Wednesday ahead of Nvidia's much-anticipated Quantum Day.
D-Wave shed more than 7% in afternoon trades, while Rigetti Computing was off more than 5%. On the other hand, shares of Ionq were up a fraction.
Nvidia is holding its first Quantum Day on Thursday when industry leaders are expected to join CEO Jensen Huang in a discussion about the trends in the industry.
Nvidia announced the holding of the event after Huang said that quantum computing won't be "very useful" for 15-30 years. The comment during a Consumer Electronics Show session in January triggered a sell-off in quantum computing stocks.
Alex Patt, an analyst with D.A. Davidson, said investors are cautious ahead of the Nvidia event, and that's likely a factor for the stock moves.
"I'd point out that all of this is in anticipation of NVDA's Quantum Day tomorrow," he told Investor's Business Daily.
Shares of Rigetti and D-Wave "have been bid up considerably these past few days compared to IonQ. So not surprised that there's likely some mean reversion occurring with all of them."
Quantum Computing: Big Day Hosted By Nvidia
But Platt argued that he "wouldn't focus as much on day to day as they've all been moving in anticipation of tomorrow."
In fact, shares Rigetti and D-Wave had been rallying before the recent slump.
"If you were to zoom out the chart just even a few days you'd see both RGTI and QBTS have had good run ups into Quantum Day," Platt, who has a buy rating on IonQ, said. "They're just taking a breather and IONQ is following up after having been bid up less in that same time frame.
He said the "general mood is that we'll see where these leaders in quantum believe the space is in terms of timeline to useful applications," Platt added.
"As we know Jensen at CES said something quite negative towards quantum being decades out, but is now hosting this event so it will be interesting to hear the dialogue out of there."
