June 5, 2025
Equities have staged a bullish reversal since early April and we’re seeing nuclear stocks emerge as the new “Juice” trade in the alternative energy space. Investors are moving off low vol. in favor of higher beta exposure in both Growth and Cyclical areas of the equity market. In the Alternative Energy space, that preference for “risk-on” has meant a tailwind for nuclear stocks and uranium miners.
When we look at a cohort of Nuclear and Uranium ETFs (chart below), we can seed a high correlation in performance and significant excess returns over the past 3 months. The chart shows ETFs URA, URNM, NUKZ, NLR and URNJ. These are some of the bigger pure play funds by AUM. Over the past 3-months they are up 20-30% over the S&P 500. Many remember the meteoric rise of solar stocks ENPH and SEDG during the post pandemic period and may think new Energy plays are too volatile. But to those, we would say nuclear and uranium stocks are in their relative infancy. These stocks are worth exploring as a potential source of clean sustainable energy. Of the stocks in the combined universe of the ETFs listed, only Cameco Corp. (CCJ-US) is >$20B market cap. while most names are firmly in the small cap. realm at <$4B.
Our friends at ETFAction.com have a handy ETF overlap tool that makes sifting through ETFs to find potential core holdings a simple exercise. The table below shows crossover between the 5 funds we’ve focused on. 9 stocks are in 4 out of the 5 funds. Cameco is clearly a core holding in the nuclear space as the biggest Uranium miner.
Our favorite stock in the group is LEU while we keep running this exercise to develop a cohort of the most attractive names.
OKLO is another name showing explosive growth in the near-term. We want to accumulate on pullbacks near the 50-day moving average on a chart like this.
PDN (Australia) is an example of a nuclear adjacent stock that has gained significantly off the April lows, but is not upside extended
Conclusion
Nuclear stocks are overcoming the stigmas of the 20th century and are being embraced as a clean energy concept for the present and future. Many constituents in thematic nuclear ETFs are in the Small and Micro-cap. tier, so we think there is a long potential ramp for Growth in front of the industry. This is the most speculative area of the alternative energy trade at present.
Data sourced from ETFAction.com and FactSet Research Systems Inc.
