Nuclear Stocks Swing Wildly on Policy Headlines While Only One Company Actually Files to Build

Nuclear stocks bounced hard this week, then gave it back, then bounced again. According to 24/7 Wall St's Market Movers desk, Oklo (NYSE: OKLO) jumped 5% to $39.84 on a session with zero company news attached. NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) rose 4% to $8.63. Uranium Energy Corp (NYSEAMERICAN: UEC) added 3% to $10.14. The Global X Uranium ETF (NYSEARCA: URA) climbed 2% to $42.62, outrunning the S&P 500's 0.79% gain that same session.

None of that reflects a reactor turning on. According to 24/7 Wall St, nuclear names rallied midweek on a House vote covering data center power costs, then handed the gains back Friday, then partially clawed them back Monday. That is a policy trade, round-tripping inside a single week, on stocks whose underlying reactors are not yet in commercial service.

The bull case still needs concrete

Jefferies analyst Laurence Alexander projects global nuclear capacity hitting 1,903 gigawatts by 2100, roughly five times 2025 levels, according to ZeroHedge's review of the firm's research. Bank of America's conference recap, also cited by ZeroHedge, points to China's model of standardization, specialization, and centralization across engineering, construction, and workforce as the reason Beijing builds reactors faster than Western developers break ground. ZeroHedge is blunt about why that playbook does not transfer cleanly to the U.S. China's approach relies on centralized, non-democratic control over land, labor, and permitting that American regulators and courts do not grant.

Capital-intensive infrastructure with decade-long lead times is always going to look slow next to quarterly earnings cycles, and the Trump administration has pledged to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050, according to The Motley Fool. Enrichment demand backs up the bull case too. Urenco's order book grew from just under €9 billion in 2021 to more than €21 billion recently, ZeroHedge reported from the World Nuclear Association Symposium, suggesting real fuel-chain money is moving even if reactors aren't yet online.

One actual permit filing

Blue Energy, a Maryland-based developer, filed the first half of its NRC construction permit application for a gas-to-nuclear plant at the Port of Victoria, Texas, according to Power Engineering. The project would pair GE Vernova 7HA.02 gas turbines with GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactors, and the company says it's one of just five firms to submit a construction permit application in this wave of advanced nuclear development.

CEO Jake Jurewicz called it "serious work done by serious people for a serious project." Blue Energy expects a final investment decision in 2027 and says the project will be project-financed rather than backed by ratepayers, a detail that matters because most nuclear financing to date has leaned on government support to bridge years of no revenue, per ZeroHedge's reporting.

The bear case has numbers too

UBS downgraded NuScale Power to Sell from Neutral and cut its price target to $6 from $10, implying roughly 40% downside from the level at the time of the call, according to Nuclear News's report on TheStreet's coverage. UBS's argument is about execution, not technology: competitors are moving toward construction while NuScale has an expected build time of more than five years and no concrete client commitments. UBS forecasts just one NuScale project breaking ground in 2028.

The balance sheet backs up the skepticism. NuScale has recorded a cumulative deficit of $824.4 million as of June 30, 2026, and burned $372.9 million in operating cash in the first half of 2026, up from $56.1 million in the same period a year earlier, Nuclear News reported. NuScale itself brings in about $11 million from electric power customers, according to Simply Wall St, versus Oklo's roughly $7.1 billion market valuation and GE Vernova's $250.4 billion, despite none of the small modular reactor names having a commercial plant running.

The Motley Fool notes Oklo is down about 39% in 2026 and sits far below its 52-week high of $193.84, even as the average Wall Street price target of $80 implies analysts still expect a rebound.

Data-center backlash hits the IPO market

The skepticism isn't confined to existing public companies. SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary planning what it calls the largest data center project in the world in Ohio, delayed its IPO after investors balked at its sought valuation of $50 billion or more, according to Business Standard's report drawing on The New York Times. Holtec, which builds small reactors aimed at powering data centers, paused its IPO indefinitely, citing "uncertainty of data center development" as the primary reason, per its own company release cited by Business Standard.

Holtec's admission comes directly from the company itself, not a media narrative. Political tailwinds and AI demand forecasts are real, but investors want contracted customers and shovels in the ground, not just capacity projections stretching to 2100.

What comes next

Blue Energy's Texas project is the concrete test case. If its final investment decision lands in 2027 as planned, and if the project financing structure holds without ratepayer backing, it becomes the proof point the rest of the industry has been missing. Until then, NuScale's first project breaking ground in 2028, per UBS, and the still-undetermined outcome of the SB Energy and Holtec IPOs will remain critical questions for investors tracking whether this sector moves on headlines or concrete.