NuScale Stock Has Lost More Than Half Its Value in 2026, Its Worst Year Since 2023. Here's What Happened the Year After That One.

NuScale Power (NYSE:SMR) finished 2025 at $14.17 a share. As of this writing, it trades near $5, down about 64% this year. That puts 2026 on track to be the stock's worst year since 2023, when it dropped 68%.

What followed makes 2023 worth a closer look. The small modular reactor developer's shares climbed 445% in 2024, ending the year at $17.93.

Sure, one rebound is a single case, not a pattern. But what changed between the two years makes a helpful case study for what NuScale needs now. And I think the two setups aren't as alike as the stock price suggests.

Image source: Getty Images.

Short on cash and customers

In 2023, NuScale's problem was survival. In November of that year, NuScale and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems agreed to cancel the Carbon Free Power Project, a plant NuScale had worked on for around 10 years. The partners said the project looked unlikely to sign up enough utilities to keep going. Shares dropped around 33% the next trading day.

The balance sheet made that blow tougher to brush off. NuScale finished 2023 with $125.4 million in cash and equivalents ($5.1 million of it restricted). Its operations had gone through around $183 million in the year.

In other words, the company was holding less than a year of its 2023 spending.

The rebound paid for itself

The turn in 2024 began with cuts. In January, NuScale eliminated 154 full-time jobs, about 28% of its staff, aiming to achieve $50 million to $60 million in annual savings.

Showing how much the cuts mattered, NuScale's 2024 operating loss was $138.7 million, around half of 2023's $275.6 million. Cash used by operations dropped to around $109 million from about $183 million. Even more, revenue grew 62% to $37.0 million, thanks to engineering and licensing work on a planned six-module NuScale plant in Romania. And by early 2025, management said it was in advanced talks with potential data center and artificial intelligence customers.

Next, the stock's rally refilled the bank account. NuScale's warrants let holders buy shares at $11.50, and after the stock rose well above that price, around 97% were exercised, generating about $205 million in 2024. NuScale also raised about $205 million that year by selling new shares.

NuScale's cash and short-term investments grew from $161.7 million at the end of September 2024 to $446.7 million at year-end -- around four years of its 2024 cash spending. In short, NuScale had fixed both its cost and cash problems.

Is 2026 a repeat of 2023?

This year, cash isn't the problem. NuScale's third-quarter report, released Nov. 5, showed about $1.9 billion in cash and investments and no debt.

At roughly $5 a share, the whole company is valued at about $2.2 billion, arguably little more than the cash.

NuScale still loses money, so there's no price-to-earnings ratio to use.

The weak point is revenue. NuScale's revenue in 2026 through September was $921,000, versus $29.7 million in the same months of 2025, as the Romania work wound down. Set against $22.8 million in 2023 and $37.0 million in 2024, revenue is moving in the opposite direction from the trend that accompanied the rebound.

What might change the picture is a binding power purchase agreement between ENTRA1 Energy, NuScale's commercialization partner, and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). In September 2025, the two signed a non-binding deal for up to 6 gigawatts of nuclear capacity, with ENTRA1 intending to build around NuScale's reactors. The binding one hasn't been signed yet.

But that milestone pulls cash the other way. A 2025 agreement requires NuScale to pay ENTRA1 in three parts as the program advances. The first payment, triggered by the non-binding deal for 72 modules, cost NuScale $507 million, or 15% of the total.

The second part, 35% of the total, is due when ENTRA1 signs a binding power deal. If all 72 modules carry through, that works out to nearly $1.2 billion. And an equipment order triggers the last 50%.

Back then, the rally pulled cash from warrants into NuScale's account. This time, the next good headline brings a bill.

Can 2026 set up the same sort of rebound? I doubt it. In 2024, NuScale could fix its main problems itself by cutting costs and raising cash. This time, the next step is up to ENTRA1 and TVA. And even a signed deal might leave shareholders waiting on a module order and on what NuScale earns from each module.

A signing would probably send the growth stock up for a while. But I'd rather see what an order pays NuScale before buying shares, and that's still farther off than a signature.

Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.