Uranium Energy (UEC 0.39%) stock raced out of the gate on the first trading day of 2025, rising 11.2% through 10:50 a.m. ET.
A modest uptick in the price of uranium underlies Uranium Energy's strength today, with prices rising more than 4% in the final days of 2024.
NYSEMKT: UEC
Key Data Points
One trend ends. Did a new one just begin?
Despite all sorts of good news for nuclear energy stocks in general in 2024, the year was not a great one for uranium miners like Uranium Energy in particular. In the face of a stock market that gained more than 25%, Uranium Energy stock actually lost value in 2024, and the big reason for this was the falling value of the uranium it produces.
From highs of more than $105 per pound at the start of the year, uranium prices plunged as low as $70 toward the end of 2024, a 33% decline over 12 months. Viewed in that context, this week's modest climb from $70 to $73 a pound looks like a blip.
Unless, of course, it's the end of a trend of falling uranium prices in 2024, and the beginning of a new trend of rising uranium prices in 2025.
Is Uranium Energy stock a buy?
Is there any reason to think this might be the case? Actually, there might be.
In December, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded contracts worth more than $6 billion to a series of companies in the business of enriching uranium ore for use as nuclear fuel -- fuel that could be used in a whole series of nuclear power plant projects that tech giants such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft are supporting.
Granted, none of this $6 billion will go directly to Uranium Energy, which mainly mines uranium, not enriches it. Still, there's big money moving to support growth in nuclear power. It makes sense that some of this money will find its way to Uranium Energy stock, sometime, somehow. Although unprofitable today, better days could be coming for this nuclear power stock.
