The nuclear sector carries five prominent stocks, but only two of them actually sell fuel in the market today.
Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) and Centrus Energy (NYSE: LEU) generate real revenue, while Oklo (NYSE: OKLO), NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR), and Nano Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NNE) remain pre-commercial.
Cameco booked approximately $2.5 billion in trailing-12-month revenue and carries a market value of around $41 billion, making it the group’s most established business.
The uranium giant’s second-quarter results came in below last year’s, with difficult spring road conditions in northern Saskatchewan and temporary disruptions weighing on uranium production.
Management still raised its full-year outlook for realized uranium prices and revenue, pointing to improving market conditions, and Cameco pays a small dividend with a yield under 1%.
Centrus Energy generated about $474 million in trailing-12-month revenue against a market value of roughly $3.6 billion, and it operates America’s first facility licensed to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium, known as HALEU.
HALEU is the fuel that most advanced reactor designs, including Oklo’s, are counting on for their commercial operations.
The three pre-commercial developers carry a combined market value of about $12 billion against combined trailing-12-month revenue of roughly $12 million, representing approximately a thousand dollars of market value for every dollar of sales.
Oklo, the largest of the three at about $7.9 billion, reported $1.2 million of second-quarter revenue, up from zero a year earlier, alongside a net loss that widened to $48.5 million from $33.1 million in the first quarter.
The first-half net loss for Oklo reached $81.6 million, with spending ramping rather than pulling back as construction of its Aurora powerhouses moves ahead.
Oklo does hold approximately $3 billion in cash and marketable securities, giving it a significant war chest to fund years of reactor construction without commercial revenue.
NuScale Power achieved a significant regulatory milestone as the first small modular reactor design certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but its trailing-12-month sales stand at only about $10.7 million against a $3.5 billion market value.
Nano Nuclear, valued at roughly $1 billion, has recorded no revenue at all, though it ended March with $568.7 million in cash and short-term investments while its lead microreactor project works toward a construction permit.
These three companies have also seen sharp stock price declines, with NuScale trading about 83% below its 52-week high, Oklo about 77% below its own peak, and Nano Nuclear about 70% down from its high.
The anticipated buyers driving investor enthusiasm for nuclear power are data centers running artificial intelligence workloads, though demand alone does not determine which reactor design wins or when deployment actually happens.
First-of-a-kind nuclear projects tend to run late, and a company with no revenue has nothing to fall back on if its commercial schedule slips, a risk the sharp drawdowns across the group clearly illustrate.
For investors seeking nuclear exposure with a margin of safety, Cameco and Centrus remain the only two names in this group that get paid when nuclear fuel actually changes hands today.
