There is something to be said for actually having a product.
From The Motley Fool, November 10:
- When it comes to SMR nuclear reactors, Nano Nuclear, NuScale, and Oklo get all the good press.
- GE Vernova is a much stronger nuclear energy company, however -- and now it's won a Canadian contract.
- By 2030, the first GE Vernova BWRX-300 nuclear reactor should be online in Canada.
Ever since President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders promoting nuclear power development in May, small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) have been all the rage. And investors have rushed to buy shares of the three best-known names in this nascent industry: Nano Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NNE), NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR), and Oklo (NYSE: OKLO).
Nano Nuclear and NuScale stocks have been the least successful of the trio; their share prices are both up more than double over the past year. Oklo stock has soared more than 500% over the last 12 months.
And yet, all three of these nuclear stocks operate under a significant constraint that could prevent their dominating the SMR market: They're currently unprofitable and, according to analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, unlikely to earn any profit before 2030 at the earliest (2033 for Nano Nuclear).
But GE Vernova (NYSE: GEV) is profitable. It's worth $157 billion in market capitalization, or about 6 times as big as Nano, NuScale, and Oklo combined.
And GE Vernova just landed a big nuclear SMR contract... in Canada....
....MUCH MORE
Not "just".
May 26 - "How GE Vernova plans to deploy small nuclear reactors across the developed world" (GEV)
A bit of background to point up the importance of a couple recent posts:
May 12 - Nuclear: "Canada to Build $15 Billion Modular Nuclear Plant, First in G-7" (GEV)
May 23 - "Trump plots ‘Manhattan Project 2’ in nuclear power push" (CCJ; GEV)
Of course GEV is the go-to for natural gas fired turbines:
"How AI energy demand in 2025 will put natural gas in the spotlight" (GEV)
"GE Vernova to export $14.2 billion in turbines, energy solutions to Saudi Arabia, US says" (GEV)
as well as setting you up with industrial-scale wind turbines should they be on your shopping list:
"GE Vernova Hits A High As Troubled Wind Energy Unit Improves" (GEV)
I'm not sure the wind business is much of a driver for either the company or the stock, at least not this year. As we've mentioned, GEV is involved, one way or another, with something on the order of 30% of the world's electricity production. You want a gas-turbine co-gen set-up for your data center? Just call the sales peeps from General Electric, they've been doing it since 1882.*
July 3 - ICYMI: "In Small Nuclear Reactors, There’s One Clear Leader Today" (GEV)
Regarding those Nordic deals:
HELSINKI, Finland (July 1, 2025) – GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) and Fortum have entered into an early works agreement to advance potential deployment of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) in Finland and Sweden....
—from July 1's "GE Vernova, Other Power Stocks Weigh on the S&P 500" (GEV).
As noted introducing June 27's "Trump plans executive orders to power AI growth in race with China" (PWR; GEV; CCJ):
I think we're positioned correctly with the Quanta, GE Vernova, Cameco etc.
But until sales, earnings, and cash flow catch up to the news, valuations are getting stretched.
But at least we have sales, earnings, and cash flow should the overall market tumble.
Money coming in the front door is comforting and a cushion against impulsivity, regret and all the other things that get in the way of big gains.
And as mentioned exiting May 23's ""Trump plots ‘Manhattan Project 2’ in nuclear power push" (CCJ; GEV)":
The "set it and forget it" stocks are in the headline, Cameco among the miners and GE Vernova among the nuke reactor manufacturers.
However, as is so often the case the speculative lottery tickets are seeing a lot of enthusiasm for their shares. The problem with them as investments are 1) a lack of stuff like sales/earnings/cash flow and 2) our conviction that we will see at least one and possibly three bear markets before they have products.
And in bear markets it is the companies lacking in sales/earnings/cash flow that get hit hardest; as investors begin to question whether they may have made a big mistake.
Addendum: I should have mentioned that with Cameco you also get 49% of nuke plant company Westinghouse. Brookfield owns the 51%.
And in June 16's "Why U.S. Uranium Production Surged 12-Fold In 2024" a reminder that Kazakhstan's Kazatomprom is and will probably remain the world's largest producer.
