IonQ Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:IONQ)

IonQ, Inc. (NYSE:IONQ) saw some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock traders purchased 19,060 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 72% compared to the typical daily volume of 11,110 call options.

Insider Activity at IonQ

In other IonQ news, CRO Rima Alameddine sold 9,159 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.72, for a total value of $98,184.48. Following the completion of the sale, the executive now directly owns 648,783 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,954,953.76. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 11.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On IonQ

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Bleakley Financial Group LLC bought a new position in IonQ during the third quarter valued at about $152,000. Good Life Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of IonQ during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $250,000. nVerses Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of IonQ during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $72,000. Vontobel Holding Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of IonQ by 49.5% in the 3rd quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 42,562 shares of the company’s stock worth $372,000 after purchasing an additional 14,095 shares during the period. Finally, Creative Planning lifted its position in shares of IonQ by 47.8% during the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 24,364 shares of the company’s stock valued at $213,000 after buying an additional 7,878 shares during the last quarter. 41.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

IONQ has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Benchmark cut their target price on IonQ from $16.00 to $12.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price objective on shares of IonQ from $11.50 to $8.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 9th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $13.00 target price on shares of IonQ in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Craig Hallum dropped their price target on shares of IonQ from $21.00 to $15.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, IonQ currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $12.00.

IonQ Stock Performance

Shares of IONQ stock opened at $12.47 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -15.02 and a beta of 2.05. IonQ has a 52-week low of $6.22 and a 52-week high of $15.49. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $8.17 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $8.09.

IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The company reported ($0.18) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.22) by $0.04. The company had revenue of $11.38 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.66 million. IonQ had a negative return on equity of 34.02% and a negative net margin of 525.13%. IonQ’s quarterly revenue was up 106.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($0.16) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that IonQ will post -0.84 EPS for the current fiscal year.

IonQ Company Profile

IonQ, Inc engages in the development of general-purpose quantum computing systems in the United States. It sells access to quantum computers of various qubit capacities. The company makes access to its quantum computers through cloud platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Braket, Microsoft’s Azure Quantum, and Google’s Cloud Marketplace, as well as through its cloud service.