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Luke Kawa

IonQ’s purchase of Vector Atomic will support efforts to grow its sales to governments, says Needham & Company

IonQ’s announced plans to acquire quantum sensor company Vector Atomic in an all-stock deal worth approximately $400 million. The purchase is expected to close in Q4.

“This acquisition marks a significant acceleration and expansion opportunity for IonQ as we continue to lead the commercialization of quantum technologies,” Niccolo de Masi, chairman and CEO of IonQ, said in a press release. “Integrating Vector Atomic’s sensing capabilities across our compute, networking, and space portfolios will advance our mission to provide scalable, commercial-grade quantum solutions for our customers today. The addition of Vector Atomic’s 29 pending and issued patents to IonQ’s formidable patent portfolio, and its talented team of scientists and engineers will help us reach our quantum technology goals.”

Needham analyst N. Quinn Bolton, who has a “buy” rating and $80 price target on IonQ, highlighted that Vector Atomic’s more than $200 million in government contracts and projects would help support the company’s growth in this area.

“Vector Atomic’s field-validated offerings, which include high-performance clocks, synchronization hardware, gravimeters, and inertial sensors, strengthen IonQ’s position as the only quantum company integrating computing, networking, and sensing within a single platform,” he wrote. “Vector Atomic’s portfolio of products has been designed to support mission-critical federal and national security applications.”

This deal comes on the heels of the closing of its acquisition of Oxford Ionics and its Analyst Day event, which served as a catalyst for IonQ and the broader quantum space.

Today, on the other hand, IonQ is not the top performer in the industry: that distinction goes to D-Wave Quantum, which is benefiting from a wave of bullish options bets.

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Toby Bochan
Market wrap
12/19/25
Markets close out 2025’s last full week of trading on a cheerful note

Stocks rallied for the second day in a row, with the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all closing higher, giving traders the early Christmas gift they desired.

Man is happy about his saw
markets
Nate Becker

Health insurance stocks lose steam as Trump says he’ll lobby insurers for lower prices

Shares of health insurance companies dropped Friday afternoon, as President Trump said he would ask insurers to meet with him in the coming weeks to seek lower prices.

Stocks including Humana, UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, CVS Health, and Elevance Health all either pared gains or went further into the red after Trump’s remarks, which came at the end of a press event to announce pricing deals with nine drugmakers.

“I’m going to call a meeting of the big insurance companies that have gotten so rich,” Trump said, noting that he would lobby them for lower prices.

“I would say that maybe with one talk, they would be willing to cut their prices by 50, 60, or 70%. They’ve made a fortune.”

markets
Max Knoblauch

Rivian’s surge continues as stock reaches highest level since December 2023 on analyst upgrades

Shares of EV maker Rivian are on pace to close up double digits for the second day in a row on Friday as bullish investors pour into the stock following analyst upgrades.

Rivian shares were up more than 10% on Friday afternoon, with the stock climbing to its highest level since December 2023.

Webush’s Dan Ives boosted his Rivian price target by 56% to $25 in a note on Friday morning. The analyst wrote that 2026 is a “prove-me” year for the automaker, with its lower-cost R2 model set to launch in the first half.

Ives’s note follows a separate optimistic bit of analysis from Baird, which also boosted its Rivian price target to $25 in a note on Thursday.

If today's gains hold, Friday will mark the third day of double-digit gains for Rivian in the past six trading days. An “AI Day” event that saw the automaker detail autonomous updates and tease a robotaxi plan started the recent run.

markets
Luke Kawa

The neoclouds are shooting back up into the stratosphere

Investors’ faith in tech CEOs’ pursuit of digital God has seemingly been restored for now, sparking an intense rally in the speculative AI players that had been in full-on meltdown mode over concerns that the boom had passed its best-before date.

The data center companies colloquially known as the “neoclouds” — CoreWeave, Nebius, IREN, and Cipher Mining — are up more than double digits over the past two sessions, as of 10:40 a.m. ET.

The past 48 hours have brought a steady drumbeat of positive news for the AI theme.

CoreWeave received a vote of confidence from Wall Street as Citi resumed coverage with a buy rating and price target of $135. Oracle, the epicenter of AI credit concerns, has seen a reversal in its fortunes as it nears an acquisition of TikTok’s US operations. And OpenAI’s fundraising efforts appear be going so well that its reported valuation has gone up in back-to-back days.

Before that, Micron’s earnings reaffirmed the intense demand for AI compute, which continues to outstrip supply — a positive sign for the neoclouds. The macro backdrop is also turning perhaps a bit more in favor of lower interest rates, as CPI inflation came in well below expectations.

Snoop Dogg Performs At OVO Hydro Glasgow

Marijuana rescheduling could mean more investment in US weed stocks. There aren’t many ways in.

“Yes, institutional capital will go into the underlying names. The question is: How fast?" one weed company chairman said.

J. Edward Moreno12/19/25

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