Uranium ETF Down 39% Since January 2026 as Drawdown Outlasts Historical Average
URA has fallen 39.18% since January 2026, surpassing the five-year average drawdown depth and running more than twice the historical average duration.
URA, the Global X Uranium ETF, was priced at $44.93 as of August 16 (2026-08-16), having fallen 39.18% since January 2026 — a decline that MoneyWeek data published August 15 (2026-08-15) measures against a five-year record of 11 drawdowns averaging 30.7% per episode. The current correction has exceeded that average by roughly nine percentage points, with no confirmed reversal yet.6
The same dataset produced 14 rallies of 20% or more, averaging a gain of 45.6% and completing in about 34 days. That recovery speed was faster than the 46-day average drawdown. The pattern points to a sector that has historically distributed losses slowly and recovered quickly, though whether the current episode follows that template is not established from the data alone.6
The largest move on record came after the deepest correction. URA fell 46.14% into October 2024 (2024-10), then rallied 134.60% over 132 days. The shallower 23.24% pullback that ended in October 2025 (2025-10) gave way to a 65.33% gain, the second-largest recovery in the MoneyWeek dataset. In each case, the subsequent rally substantially exceeded the preceding drawdown.6
The current slide, according to MoneyWeek's August 15 (2026-08-15) reporting, has run 120 days since beginning in January 2026 (2026-01). That duration exceeds the five-year average drawdown length of 46 days by a factor of more than two. MoneyWeek does not break down what has sustained the correction beyond historical norms.6
One supply-side event contributed to the sell-off's early momentum. The episode followed flooding-related transport disruption at McArthur River and Key Lake, a mine-and-mill complex in Saskatchewan that ranks among the world's highest-grade uranium operations. But 2026 guidance for the complex holds at 19.5 million pounds to 21.5 million pounds, indicating the disruption did not alter the annual production outlook.6
Demand-side commitments have continued to accumulate without reversing the equity decline. Thirty-eight countries have pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050, Meta has signed agreements covering up to 6.6 gigawatts-electric of nuclear power, and the U.S. Department of Energy has offered loan support for new reactor projects, according to 247 Wall St. Motley Fool reported a nuclear deal between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia on August 1 (2026-08-01). None of it arrested the slide.3,5
The broader uranium equity complex remained volatile throughout. On May 19, 2026 (2026-05-19), Oklo shed 5%, Uranium Energy tumbled 9%, and Energy Fuels slid 6% in a single session despite the demand thesis remaining broadly intact, according to AOL Finance.1
Uranium Energy held 1.46 million pounds of uranium in reserve at the end of its fiscal third quarter of 2026, a position that insulates the company partly from spot price weakness but ties a significant portion of its asset value to a commodity priced at multi-month lows, according to Motley Fool.4
Not all uranium-focused funds have fallen as far. NLR, the VanEck Uranium+Nuclear Energy ETF, carried a 37% one-year gain as of June 2026 (2026-06), according to Yahoo Finance. That fund's broader exposure to reactor operators and equipment makers, rather than pure-play uranium miners, has historically offered a less volatile ride at the cost of direct leverage to uranium prices.2
Over ten years, URA has returned 416%, the highest among tracked uranium ETFs according to Yahoo Finance data from June 2026 (2026-06). Those compounded gains span multiple cycles of sharp decline and sharp recovery. The McArthur River guidance holding for 2026 removes a clean supply-disruption narrative from the bearish case. What has yet to materialize is the sustained utility contracting activity at current price levels that preceded the fund's largest prior rebounds, and its absence may be what determines how long the 2026 correction runs.2,6