Shares of Oklo (OKLO -4.77%), one of a handful of start-up nuclear power companies benefiting from President Trump's May 2025 initiative to accelerate development of small modular reactors, fell more than 1% Wednesday, and are down another 6.1% through 11:45 a.m. ET Thursday morning. -- apparently on no particularly bad news.
Worse, Oklo actually got good news (but not great news) yesterday that probably should have moved the stock higher. Instead, Oklo keeps falling. So what's up with that?
Image source: Getty Images.
What's up with Oklo going down?
Yesterday, Oklo won three Department of Energy (DOE) "Reactor Pilot Program" contracts aiming to start up three small modular reactors by July 4, 2026. At first, this sounded like great news -- except that eight other companies won the same kind of contract.
Apparently, Oklo's not in quite as exclusive company as first seemed, and has a smaller chance of winning future work than initially seemed the case.
Oklo stock, which started Wednesday up on the DOE news, ended the day down -- and yesterday's pessimism seems to be continuing into today. Adding to the malaise is a Bureau of Labor Statistics report today that suggests inflation is speeding up again, which lessens the likelihood the Federal Reserve will be able to lower interest rates this year.
Is it time to sell Oklo stock?
Why are higher interest rates bad news for Oklo? Well, they aren't actually -- not immediately. Oklo's burning more than $50 million in cash annually, and may eventually have to take on debt to fund its operations, at which point, interest rates will be an issue. With more than $500 million in the bank, however, and near-zero debt, interest rates aren't really a concern to Oklo... yet.
And I see no immediate need to sell the stock on interest rate concerns alone.
