The booming investor appetite for nuclear energy stocks is perhaps best reflected in the meteoric rise of shares in small modular reactor (SMR) startup Oklo, Inc. (OKLO).
The stock rose nearly 30% on Friday and was up 8.8% on Monday, driving its gains for 2025 to 552.7%.
The company has scored some big wins this year, including two pilot programs with the U.S. Department of Energy and the planned launch of a $1.68-billion facility in Tennessee that will convert nuclear waste into fuel, which is a first-of-its-kind operation in the U.S.
While these are no doubt the kinds of developments that can get Wall Street bullish on a company’s stock, they also have to be considered against the financial reality facing Oklo and other nuclear startups: Most of them are not expected to be profitable for years.
In fact, Oklo is not expected to begin generating revenue until 2027, according to data from FactSet, and will likely remain unprofitable through 2028.
But given the Trump administration's push to revive the nuclear industry in the US in order to help power the proliferation of AI data centers, many on Wall Street remain confident betting on the future.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives raised his price target on Oklo to $150 from $80 on Sunday, citing "incremental confidence in the company's nuclear growth strategy as the AI Revolution hits its next stride of growth," as Investor’s Business Daily reported.
"Given the recent focus on nuclear energy following the Trump Administration Executive Order we view this as 'just the start' of the nuclear focus for energy in the U.S. over the coming year with OKLO leading the sector," Ives added.
Oklo’s shares are of course not the only beneficiary of the nuclear power hype: NuScale Power Corporation’s (SMR) stock has soared nearly 134% for the year, GE Vernova (GEV) is up 83.4%, BWX Technologies (BWXT) is up 71.8%, Cameco Corp. (CCJ) has risen 66.2%, and Constellation Energy Corp. (CEG) has posted a 62.8% gain YTD.
Hype could be obscuring headwinds
And now some on Wall Street are starting to get a little dubious about how frothy the market for nuclear stocks has gotten.
Rama Variankaval, global head of corporate advisory for JPMorgan Chase & Co., acknowledged in an interview with Bloomberg that nuclear will almost certainly play a big role in the energy sector in the future, but “the reality of nuclear is it’s not ready for prime time.”
Variankaval described closed-door meetings he had during climate week in New York, where the conversations around nuclear power included “unrealistic optimism” around the sector.
Meanwhile, there are lingering questions about whether SMRs will actually be able to deliver on the promise of fueling the AI data center boom – and what it will cost to do so. There is not an SMR currently operating in the United States, making it even more speculative.
Chris Gadomski, head of nuclear research at BloombergNEF, ominously compared the enthusiasm around SMRs and data centers to the “internet boom and bust of the early 2000s” in an interview with the Financial Times.
Gadomski also suggested that Wall Street might be underestimating the enormous costs it will take to get SMRs up and running.
“There’s a lot of cheerleading happening, but the amount of capital that you need to cross the finish line is huge,” he said.
Goldman Sachs analyst Brian Lee, who initiated coverage on Oklo last month with a $117 price target, called the company’s shares a “catalyst-driven stock,” but noted that while these catalysts will likely continue in the near term, Oklo “needs to secure finalized customer agreements” to justify the $20.7 billion market cap.
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