Uranium price is melting up

published 17 September 2021

Uranium prices have hit an eight-year high. The nuclear fuel was trading above $44 a pound this week for the first time since May 2013. The launch of a new investment trust by Canadian asset manager Sprott has spurred renewed interest in the commodity.

Shares in uranium-linked stocks, including UK-listed Yellow Cake and Aura Energy, have surged, says Will Horner in The Wall Street Journal. Investors are piling in. On WallStreetBets, the Reddit internet forum known for catalysing the surge in GameStop shares earlier this year, Canadian uranium business Cameco is “the third-most-discussed company”.

The buying craze has become detached from fundamentals, says Jinjoo Lee in the same paper. Don’t expect to jump in and make a quick buck. Still, on a longer-term view there are reasons to be bullish. Uranium has been in the doldrums for much of the past decade. The 2011 Fukushima disaster cast a cloud over the market, says Myra Saefong in Barron’s.

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Now the push to cut carbon emissions is brightening the outlook. China is betting big on the technology: “Over 60% of the new plants commissioned over the past decade” worldwide have been in the country. New reactors will continue to come online over the next few years, driving a steady increase in uranium demand. In 2019 The World Nuclear Association forecast “a 26% increase in uranium demand from 2020 to 2030”.

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Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019.

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere.

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful.

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.