Uranium Hits Record High While Nuclear Stocks Slide

Long-term uranium prices have hit a record $96 per pound, up roughly 12% year-to-date, while spot trades near $90/lb, up about 11% YTD. Despite those gains in the commodity, nuclear-related equities and IPO activity have weakened markedly, creating a sharp divergence between fuel prices and market sentiment toward nuclear stocks and developers.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished 8 minutes agoUpdated 8 minutes ago0 views

Why It Matters

The gap matters because it shows utilities and other buyers are reluctant to lock in higher-priced long-term contracts even as traders price long-dated scarcity into uranium, leaving spot and term volumes thin and equity investors wary of nuclear project and SMR risk. That split affects supplier revenues, financing conditions for new builds, and the pace of procurement ahead of reactor fuel needs.

Key Facts

Long-term uranium price: $96/lb (all-time record), ~+12% YTD (UxC data compiled by TD Cowen)
Spot uranium price: ~$90/lb, ~+11% YTD
2007 peak (nominal): Prior high of $95/lb in mid-2007 (roughly $150/lb in today's dollars)
Term contracting volumes (Aug 31): Just over 38Mlbs, down ~15% y/y
Term contracting volumes (Sep 15): 42.2Mlbs, narrowing the year-over-year shortfall to ~3%

Uranium prices have climbed to new highs on long-term contracts, with the term market printing $96 per pound and spot trading around $90 per pound. Those moves represent roughly 12% and 11% year-to-date gains respectively, and pushed term pricing above the nominal 2007 peak. TD Cowen’s uranium coverage notes the record prints have occurred on relatively limited volumes.

Term contracting volumes have been uneven in 2026. As of August 31 term contracting was down about 15% year-over-year at just over 38 million pounds; volumes rose to 42.2 million pounds by September 15, narrowing the shortfall. Cumulative 2026 term volumes are tracking at the low end of the past five years and well below 2023’s roughly 160 million pound outturn, reflecting that utilities have been reluctant to sign new long-term deals at current prices.

Spot-market activity has been livelier than term, with cumulative 2026 spot volume at 38.6 million pounds across 377 transactions as of September 15, an increase of about 12% year-over-year, in part driven by SPUT’s purchases earlier in the year. The spot market currently trades at roughly a $6 per pound discount to term, a reversal from the 2023–24 period when spot carried a large premium. TD Cowen interprets the spread as indicative of buyers pricing long-dated scarcity while remaining comfortable on near-term deliveries.

Equities tied to nuclear power tell a very different story. Broad nuclear ETFs and many developers have fallen sharply: the NLR nuclear ETF is down about 12% YTD and roughly 35% below its 52-week high, while AI-focused funds such as AIQ are up roughly 25% YTD, highlighting investor preference for AI exposure over nuclear. Several advanced reactor and SMR names have seen steep declines—NuScale and Oklo are each down roughly 50% YTD—and recent market appetite has cooled IPO plans, with Holtec withdrawing an estimated $10 billion IPO and other recent debuts trading materially below their offer prices.

Policy and regulatory headlines have so far delivered only brief equity spikes. Separately, Oklo lost its PJM interconnection queue dispute after FERC found its application deficient, and the U.S. House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act on September 17, legislation that would shift certain costs to data centers under a behind-the-meter framework. TD Cowen’s analysts emphasize that while utilities can delay contracting temporarily, under-replacement contracting rates mean purchases will need to resume eventually, leaving uncertainty around the timing and pace of future term contracting.