Nuclear Energy Stocks Soared This Week

Electricity was once again a hot topic in the world of investing and nuclear energy and related stocks were the biggest beneficiaries this week. But it wasn't any executive orders or new subsidies that helped stocks, it was artificial intelligence (AI) that was the topic of the week.

According to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, shares of NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) jumped as much as 34.5% this week before settling in at a 27.3% move higher, Uranium Energy (NYSEMKT: UEC) jumped 19.9% at its peak and closed 13.1% higher for the week, and Powell Industries (NASDAQ: POWL) was up 14.2% and ended 11.3% higher.

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AI, Davos, and Stargate

The topic on everyone's mind this week, besides the inauguration, was the announcements around artificial intelligence. OpenAI said it was leading a consortium that would invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the U.S. under The Stargate Project, which will be funded by Softbank, Oracle, and other yet to be determined investors. The announcement happened to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the leaders of the tech world were also present to talk about the ambitions, including in AI, which was the talk of the town.

Beyond a big number, it's not really clear what this venture is going to be investing in besides the infrastructure OpenAI needs to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI). And even the funding for the project has come into question.

When investors hear about massive new AI spending one of the first things they think of is the need for more power. And nuclear power has become synonymous with artificial intelligence lately, for better or worse.

What this announcement didn't come with was anything that was directly related to building more nuclear power solutions, so this could all be speculation about investments that won't eventually happen.

Nuclear energy's big challenge

It's easy to speculate about AI's need for nuclear energy, but this is a very dynamic situation and the nuclear industry isn't going to start putting up projects left and right next year. Even the most optimistic timelines have plants starting production in the 2030s and in many cases, they're not expected for a decade.

This makes stocks like NuScale Power extremely risky and even Uranium Energy may not see demand for uranium rise as quickly as expected. A one-week move like this is noise in the grand scheme of the energy market and eventually, the hype will die off.

One company in this group that's less hyped is Power Industries, which has a P/E ratio of 24 and could ride the growth of electricity demand to new heights for years. This is the kind of infrastructure play that could pay off whether nuclear energy, natural gas, or renewable energy is the producer of choice.

Volatility will continue

Fundamental investors are going to have a hard time seeing the value in nuclear energy stocks for the foreseeable future and that future may never come. For more than a decade the nuclear energy industry has been seen as being on the verge of growth and it never came, in large part because the cost to build a nuclear energy power plant isn't competitive with either fossil fuels or renewable energy.

Until that changes, I'll stay out of nuclear stocks and expect to see more volatility as the whims of the market push them higher and lower depending on the news of the day.

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Travis Hoium has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Oracle. The Motley Fool recommends NuScale Power. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.