Global X Uranium ETF Extends Decline as NuScale Posts $75,000 in Quarterly Revenue
URA fell 1.72% on Monday as the nuclear sector selloff that accelerated on August 20 met near-zero SMR quarterly revenues.
The Global X Uranium ETF fell 1.72% to $45.69 on Monday (2026-08-24), continuing pressure that built on Thursday (2026-08-20) when the fund dropped 3% to $43.62 as losses spread across nuclear and uranium names.4
The Thursday (2026-08-20) session exposed the distance between the sector's strategic narrative and its underlying financials. NuScale Power reported just $75,000 in second-quarter 2026 revenue while its share count stood at 365 million, and the company has since launched a $750 million share-sale program. NuScale shares fell 5% to $8.80 on Thursday (2026-08-20), extending a decline that had already pushed the stock down 32% year-to-date as of August 11.4
Oklo matched NuScale's 5% drop on Thursday (2026-08-20), falling to $40.87. The company recorded what it described as its first meaningful quarterly revenue — $1.2 million — alongside a $48.5 million net loss, still far from converting licensing progress and customer commitments into recurring cash flow.4
Centrus Energy told a different story. The uranium enrichment company reported $176.1 million in second-quarter 2026 revenue, up 14% year over year, backed by a multibillion-dollar enrichment backlog. Yet Centrus shares fell 6% to $172.68 on Thursday (2026-08-20), caught in the same sector drawdown. The move says less about Centrus's fundamentals than about how investors treat nuclear exposure as a unified trade when sentiment shifts.4
This distinction between enrichment and reactor development shapes how fund vehicles behave in exactly this kind of selloff. The Global X Uranium ETF tracks upstream miners and carried uranium's fuel cycle gains: the fund posted roughly 62% over 12 months through June 2026 amid supply constraints. The Range Nuclear Renaissance Index ETF (NUKZ) weights toward reactor operators and SMR developers, returning 42% over the same period while trailing URA. The VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF blends regulated utilities with miners at a 0.52% expense ratio, against 0.09% for the broad Vanguard Energy ETF, which carries minimal nuclear weighting.1,2
The demand thesis behind all of it remains intact, at least on paper. The Department of Energy projects data centers will account for up to 12% of U.S. electrical demand by 2028. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has estimated the range at 6.7% to 12% of total annual U.S. consumption. The EIA expects residential electricity prices to rise 5% in 2026, increasing regulatory preference for firm, dispatchable generation.1
The problem is timing and cash. NuScale's $75,000 quarterly revenue, set against 365 million shares outstanding and a planned $750 million dilutive raise, places the entire valuation on assumptions about commercial SMR deployment still years out. Oklo's $1.2 million first quarterly revenue is a start, but the $48.5 million net loss in the same period illustrates how far the industry sits from the profitability the market's earlier enthusiasm implied.4
By contrast, the more established corner of nuclear services looks different. Analysts project BWX Technologies' revenue to grow at a 12% compound annual rate from 2025 to 2028, with adjusted EBITDA at 11% over the same period — growth rooted in existing defense and government contracts rather than commercial SMR orders that have yet to materialise.3
NUKZ traded near $72 as of June 2026, reflecting a 14% year-to-date gain at that point. Its SMR-heavy weighting makes it more exposed than its blended peers to the kind of revenue disappointment that drove Thursday (2026-08-20)'s move.1
Monday's (2026-08-24) continued slide in URA to $45.69, four days after the August 20 rout, suggests the sector has not found a floor. NuScale's pending $750 million equity raise, announced when shares were trading at $8.80 on Thursday (2026-08-20), will offer the clearest read yet on how institutional buyers price an SMR developer with almost no revenue and a share count already approaching the scale of an established utility.4