The Quantum Investing and Discussion Thread

We don’t seem to have a dedicated quantum thread. So let’s start it here.

I sense a
New Claude project coming —

A bit of homework on quantum sensing,
From
Gemini, as I think that’s where the revenue growth is now compared to the speculative hype of the non profitable Q companies:

Teledyne’s ($TDY) backlog is at a record high. However, determining whether it is in a “buy zone” depends on your valuation discipline, as the stock trades near its all-time highs following its Q2 2026 earnings release.

The Backlog & Order Book

Teledyne reported its Q2 2026 financial results, revealing a record funded backlog:

Funded Backlog: ~$5.0 Billion.

Book-to-Bill Ratio: 1.23x overall, driven by a 1.4x book-to-bill in its Digital Imaging segment (which houses space-based infrared sensors and cold-atom optical detectors).

Order Streak: Orders exceeded sales for the 11th consecutive quarter.

2026 Guidance: Management raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to over $6.53 billion and non-GAAP EPS expectations to $24.45 – $24.65.

Is the Stock in a “Buy Zone”?

$TDY trades around $636 – $640, leaving it moderately off its 52-week peak of ~$697.

The Bull Case (Growth Catalyst):

Balance Sheet: Net leverage sits at 1.1x (a 6-year low), leaving them with a clean balance sheet to execute large M&A deals ($1B+ size) in defense/sensing.

Space & Defense Exposure: Space-based imaging revenue alone is projected to reach $400M–$450M in 2026, growing over 20% year-over-year.

Pricing Power: High-margin proprietary defense sensors afford them resilient gross margins above 43%.

The Bear Case (Valuation Risk):

Full Multiple: At ~26x forward non-GAAP earnings, $TDY is not “cheap” by traditional industrial standards. Historically, buying $TDY when itsown-history P/E percentile drops below 25x forward earnings yields a much safer margin of safety.

Input Bottlenecks: Management specifically flagged supply chain headwinds in germanium and rare-earth magnets as lingering operational bottlenecks.

The Verdict

As a Long-Term Hold: $TDY is a high-quality compounder that provides direct exposure to the quantum sensing, PNT, and defense hardware supply chain.

Tactical Entry (“Buy Zone”): The stock is in a fairly-valued growth zone rather than an obvious value entry. Investors seeking a larger margin of safety typically look for pullbacks toward the $580 – $600 range (~23-24x forward EPS). A dollar-cost averaging approach works well here if you want to establish exposure without taking a full block position at near-peak multiples.

DCA for TDY it is then. :money_bag:

Speaking of quantum sensing:

Legislative Progress (H.R. 9646): Track whether the Quantum-Enhanced Critical Minerals Mapping Act passes into law, as direct USGS integration would establish a recurring federal revenue channel for their gravity gradiometers.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260818678981/en/Infleqtion-to-Test-Quantum-Sensing-in-Colorado-to-Advance-U.S.-Critical-Minerals-Security

TDY isn’t exactly a pure-play quantum computing company, but too bad they don’t have a weekly options chain. I have a list of quantum stocks that I sell weekly puts on.

IONQ
QBTS
QUBT
RGTI

I’m still holding IONQ— and INFQ.

I don’t have the nards for options though. Probably a good thing.

What kind of $ are you bring in weekly? % wise, not dollar amount.

Noice.

And this from IONQ. Bringing some love back to quantum.

Came here to post this lol.

Lol that’s the usual reaction people have when they hear options, they instinctively think it’s extremely risky or dangerous. But there are countless different strategies and methods one can employ with options, not all of them are risky. You can choose to have it as risky as you want, or as safe as you want. And in the case of selling puts, it’s quite literally safer than buying stock.

I employ a strategy of selling options for same week expiration, so for example on Monday I would sell for Friday expiration (for this week it would actually be Tuesday due to the market being closed on Monday lol).

At the beginning of a fresh week on Monday, I’m aiming to generate around 1% for whatever I’m selling on, with a requirement of having a chance-of-profit of over 80%. As the week progresses, I’m willing to accept lower returns with less days to expiration. I.E returns of 0.75%, 0.66%, 0.5% during the week, and on Fridays I can go as low as 0.33% for same day expiration.

Some examples of trades on quantum stocks from this month and last month:
-8/7 Friday (same day expiration): RGTI 14.5 strike, premium received .13 (0.89%), expired.
-8/24 Monday: RGTI 15.5 strike, premium received .14 (0.9%), expired.
-8/28 Friday (same day expiration): IONQ 39.5 strike, premium received .17 (0.43%), it declined farther that day so I had to roll it out down and out. Rolled it down to 37.5 strike for next week expiration (9/4) and received a .18 credit, it subsequently expired.
-9/1 Tuesday: RGTI 14 strike, premium received .09 (0.64%), expired

And finally this interesting and fortuitous situation that just ooccured. On Monday 8/24 I sold a put on QBTS 17.5 strike, it continued to drop that week so I had to roll it on Friday (8/28), rolled it to the next week (9/4) for the same strike and received a credit of .31. On Friday 9/4, it was below the strike price of 17.5, meaning that I had to roll it again, but I was so busy with other trades and rolls going into the close that I simply ran out of time to execute the trade before market close.

So because I didn’t roll it and it closed ITM (in-the-money), I was automatically assigned the stock at 17.5 over the weekend. I was annoyed at myself for making such a silly and avoidable mistake.

But last night I was pleasantly surprised to see that QBTS had popped big on the CHIPS news! It was up about 11% at the peak, I could have sold it for a profit and closed out the position. But instead I decided to sell a covered-call on it for 18.5 strike expiring this week and received a premium of .52. This way instead of just realizing the gain on the price appreciation of the stock, I can make money on the call premium, AND potentially have a chance of selling the stock at 18.5.

How very serendipitous that my initial mistake actually ended up working out lol.