Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis.

Good afternoon. Today is Thursday, May 21st, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn.

The U.S. government is stepping directly into the quantum race, committing billions in incentives, and taking equity stakes in the companies its backing.

The Department of Commerce signed nine letters of intent to provide more than $2 billion

in funding under the Chips and Science Act.

IBM said it signed a letter of intent to launch Anderson, a standalone quantum chip

manufacturing company that would operate what it described as America's first pureplay quantum

foundry.

Separately, Global Foundry said it received a letter of intent for $375 million to accelerate

the build-out of its new quantum unit, quantum technology solutions.

In addition to funding, the government will take minority non-controlling stakes in seven quantum

computing firms, 100 million in atom computing, DRAC up to

$38 million, D-Wave $100 million, inflection $100 million, 100 million in side quantum,

Continuum 100 million, Raghetti up to 100 million. IBM, D-Wave, Raghetti, Global Foundries,

and Inflection are all rallying. Among active stocks, Walmart is under

pressure after it issued cautious guidance amid the high gas price environment. For Q2, Walmart forecast

EPS of 70 to 74 cents below the 75 cent consensus. The full year was also shy, with the range

of 275 to 285 versus expectations for 292.

Ralph Lauren is jumping after the apparel giant posted a stronger-than-expected Q4 earnings report and issued strong guidance.

CEO Patrice Louvay noted a healthy quality of sales with balanced contributions across

lifestyle categories, geographies, and channels.

And equity residential and Avalon Bay communities agreed to combine an all-stock merger of equals.

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