3 Nuclear Stocks for Investors Willing to Wait Out the Dip

Key Points

• Nuclear stocks, including Constellation Energy and Centrus Energy, have fallen sharply over the past year even as long-term power demand keeps climbing.
• Long reactor build timelines mean revenue from the AI-driven demand boom hasn't reached company earnings yet, creating a gap between investor sentiment and underlying fundamentals.
• Options for investors range from established generators to smaller supply-chain names and a diversified nuclear-focused ETF, each with a different risk profile.

Nuclear stocks spent last year near their highs. This year, most of them haven't stopped falling.

That drop has left a lot of investors nursing losses and wondering if the nuclear story is already over. Kuran Francis, host of the FinTek Channel, doesn't see it that way. He argues the falling share prices and the sector's improving fundamentals are two completely separate stories right now, and that's exactly what makes the setup interesting.

Falling Prices, Rising Demand

The International Energy Agency projects that electricity demand from data centers will roughly double by 2030, with AI-specific demand growing even faster, largely driven by the buildout of AI infrastructure across the United States.

Nuclear reactors take years to build. That mismatch is the whole story. Companies like Meta Platforms NASDAQ: META, Microsoft NASDAQ: MSFT, and Amazon.com NASDAQ: AMZN signed major power agreements in 2024, and the resulting enthusiasm pushed nuclear stocks well ahead of any actual revenue. Now that the excitement has faded, Francis says the pullback looks less like a broken thesis and more like a reset.

Regulation adds another layer. For decades, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's job was largely to restrict and slow down new nuclear development, especially after high-profile disasters abroad. That posture is shifting.

The agency's mandate now includes actively facilitating new nuclear capacity, not just policing it, which could shorten some of the approval timelines that have historically dragged projects out for a decade or more.

Long Timelines Cut Both Ways

A standard nuclear reactor still takes six to eight years to bring online, and often longer in the United States, given that regulatory history. Smaller "small modular reactors," built at a fraction of the scale, could start reaching commercial operation as soon as 2027, though most timelines point to the early 2030s.

That patience requirement has hit small modular names hardest. Oklo Inc. NYSE: OKLO and NuScale Power Corp. NYSE: SMR both surged in late 2025 before giving back much of those gains this year. Francis notes that smaller companies swing harder in both directions and that volatility is the tradeoff for getting in before a story becomes obvious to everyone.

Nuclear already ranks among the safest sources of power generation by deaths per gigawatt, safer than coal, wind, or natural gas. The stocks have never really been priced for that reality.

Constellation Energy: The Steady Bet

Constellation Energy NASDAQ: CEG anchors Francis's list. The company already holds multi-billion-dollar power agreements with Meta and Microsoft, recently acquired a major natural gas generation business to bridge near-term demand, and trades at a price-to-earnings ratio in the low 20s.

Constellation is already profitable, which softens the risk that comes with a long buildout. The market cares less about a good idea here than proof that the cash flow already exists, and that combination of income and growth makes the current pullback look more like an opportunity than a warning sign.

Centrus Energy: The High-Risk Supply Play

For more upside and more risk, Francis points to Centrus Energy Corp. NYSE: LEU, the only U.S.-based producer of high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, the fuel type most small modular reactors are expected to rely on.

Centrus is also showing real revenue growth as its Technical Solutions and HALEU work ramp up, with management raising full-year 2026 revenue guidance on the back of that progress.

Wall Street has recently trimmed price targets on the stock even as its long-term outlook stays bullish, a split that fits the same disconnect playing out across the sector. This stock could double or go to zero, and it isn't built to be a core holding.

A Simpler Way In

For investors who'd rather not pick a single name, Francis's third pick is the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF NYSEARCA: NLR, which spreads roughly $4 billion in assets across nuclear and uranium companies globally. Constellation and Centrus both sit among its largest holdings, so choosing either the fund or the individual names, rather than both, keeps exposure from doubling up.

The fund isn't a shortcut around volatility. NLR has fallen more than 25% over the past three months, in line with the broader sector, and its relatively small size means a single large investor moving in or out can swing the price meaningfully.

The Long Game

Nothing about nuclear energy moves on a retail investor's timeline. The upside is a decade-long buildout of demand that isn't going away. The risk is holding through years of a stock price that may not reflect it.

The fear driving the sector down right now and the fundamentals driving it forward are telling two different stories. Long-term investors have to decide which one they believe.