IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) Shares Up 2.6% After Analyst Upgrade

IonQ, Inc. (NYSE:IONQ) rose 2.6% during trading on Wednesday after Benchmark raised their price target on the stock from $40.00 to $50.00. Benchmark currently has a buy rating on the stock. IonQ traded as high as $43.96 and last traded at $40.79. Approximately 29,018,270 shares were traded during mid-day trading, an increase of 24% from the average daily volume of 23,361,875 shares. The stock had previously closed at $39.74.

IONQ has been the subject of several other research reports. Needham & Company LLC lowered their price target on IonQ from $54.00 to $50.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of IonQ from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Finally, DA Davidson decreased their target price on shares of IonQ from $50.00 to $35.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 14th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $40.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other IonQ news, CEO Masi Niccolo De sold 9,280 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.23, for a total transaction of $391,894.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 711,987 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $30,067,211.01. The trade was a 1.29% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 5.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On IonQ

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. New York State Common Retirement Fund lifted its position in shares of IonQ by 16.7% during the 4th quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 61,481 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,568,000 after purchasing an additional 8,800 shares during the last quarter. Rhumbline Advisers raised its stake in IonQ by 9.2% during the 4th quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 303,803 shares of the company’s stock valued at $12,690,000 after purchasing an additional 25,577 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its position in shares of IonQ by 1,310.9% during the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,468,160 shares of the company’s stock valued at $103,095,000 after buying an additional 2,293,231 shares during the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. bought a new position in IonQ during the fourth quarter valued at about $1,255,000. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company MN increased its stake in IonQ by 43.4% during the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 255,061 shares of the company’s stock valued at $10,654,000 after acquiring an additional 77,151 shares during the period. 41.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

IonQ Trading Up 2.7%

The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $32.15 and a 200 day simple moving average of $33.22. The stock has a market cap of $9.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -50.36 and a beta of 2.59.

IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The company reported ($0.14) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.28) by $0.14. The business had revenue of $7.57 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.51 million. IonQ had a negative return on equity of 36.82% and a negative net margin of 457.85%. IonQ’s revenue was down .2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($0.19) earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that IonQ, Inc. will post -0.86 earnings per share for the current year.

About IonQ

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.