Nuclear as the scarce clean-firm answer to AI power demand: hyperscaler PPAs and restarts repricing the operating fleet, SMR developers racing to first concrete, and a fuel cycle being onshored after decades of Russian dependence. Overlap with power-grid is deliberate — this basket isolates the nuclear-specific leg: merchant fleet operators, reactor OEMs, enrichment and uranium, and instrumentation.
Basket total returns · Annualized using 252 trading sessions · 0% risk-free rate and downside target. As of 2026-10-21 · close.
How these statistics are calculated
Risk methodology
Sharpe: average daily simple return divided by its sample standard deviation, multiplied by √252. The risk-free rate is assumed to be 0%; this is not a cash-adjusted ratio.
Sortino: average daily simple return divided by downside deviation, multiplied by √252. Downside deviation is the square root of the average squared shortfall below 0%, counting all sessions, including zeros for gains.
Historical volatility: √(252 × average squared daily log return), matching the Vol page’s realized-volatility convention. This differs from the sample standard deviation used in Sharpe.
Each period requires complete history and at least 5 sessions. MTD and YTD follow the calendar; 1y is 252 sessions. Missing data or an undefined ratio displays — with a reason. Short periods can produce unstable ratios; intraday snapshots include a partial session. History before this basket’s creation is backtested. If a new basket has no stored daily return series yet, estimates from its rounded published chart levels are marked ≈.
Current members and the reasoning behind each inclusion. Returns are for individual holdings.
Why it’s included
Added
TLNTalen Energy Corporation
Susquehanna fleet plus the AWS campus PPA (Talen)
+2.9%
+0.3%
+19.7%
-4.1%
2026-07-21
VSTVistra Corp.
Second-largest competitive fleet (Energy Harbor deal) levered to data-center PPAs
+3.9%
+2.9%
+13.2%
-2.8%
2026-07-21
PEGPublic Service Enterprise Group Incorporated
The regulated exception: PSEG's merchant generation is essentially the Salem/Hope Creek nuclear fleet
+0.2%
+0.6%
+5.5%
-9.3%
2026-07-21
CEGConstellation Energy Corporation
Largest US fleet; the Microsoft Crane restart PPA is the sector's repricing event
+4.6%
-3.1%
+2.6%
-23.0%
2026-07-21
GEVGE Vernova Inc.
BWRX-300 SMR order book via GE Hitachi on top of the grid-equipment franchise
+4.0%
-1.7%
-2.7%
+41.9%
2026-07-21
BWXTBWX Technologies, Inc.
Naval-reactor monopoly plus TRISO fuel and SMR components
+0.7%
+0.5%
-4.7%
-21.5%
2026-07-21
MIRMirion Technologies, Inc.
Radiation detection and instrumentation across the fleet and new builds (Mirion)
+0.9%
-3.3%
-6.2%
-34.4%
2026-07-21
UECUranium Energy Corp.
US uranium ISR restart capacity (Uranium Energy)
+0.9%
+2.6%
-20.6%
-32.4%
2026-07-21
NNENano Nuclear Energy Inc.
Microreactors and fuel transport — the speculative end of the developer leg (Nano Nuclear)
+2.8%
+2.4%
-21.6%
-44.5%
2026-07-21
LEUCentrus Energy Corp.
The only US-owned enricher; the HALEU position (Centrus)
-0.9%
-9.2%
-28.0%
-55.1%
2026-07-21
OKLOOklo Inc.
Aurora fast-microreactor developer: INL fuel award and a data-center LOI pipeline
+0.9%
-4.5%
-28.6%
-61.4%
2026-07-21
UUUUEnergy Fuels Inc.
White Mesa mill: uranium plus rare-earth co-processing (Energy Fuels)
-0.1%
-1.7%
-29.3%
-43.6%
2026-07-21
SMRNuScale Power Corporation
The only NRC-certified SMR design (NuScale); RoPower is the first deployment test
-1.4%
-5.7%
-36.6%
-61.2%
2026-07-21
Partial price histories: CEG from 2022-01-19, GEV from 2024-03-27, MIR from 2020-08-20, NNE from 2024-05-08, OKLO from 2024-05-03, SMR from 2020-12-09, TLN from 2023-06-02.
How this basket is built
Equal-weighted; monthly rebalance, buy-and-hold between rebalances; dated membership changes reset the target weights.
Tracked since 2026-07-21. Membership decisions are documented below.
Basket returns include dividends. “vs FW 3000” compares the basket’s compounded growth with the benchmark’s. Green means positive; red means negative.
Cross-checked against NLR. Daily return correlation: 0.82 across 1710 sessions. operators, OEMs and fuel in one fund; includes foreign listings (Cameco, Kepco) outside our US-only universes
Membership history & changes
Membership history
create
Initial composition: 13 names — merchant fleets (CEG, VST, TLN, plus PEG as the nuclear-concentrated regulated exception), OEM and developers (GEV, BWXT, OKLO, SMR, NNE), fuel cycle (LEU, UEC, UUUU) and instrumentation (MIR). Reference pinned to NLR. Considered and excluded: CCJ and the foreign fuel majors (non-US-domiciled, outside the FW 3000), the private developers everyone actually watches (X-energy, TerraPower, Kairos, Westinghouse), regulated utilities with fleets buried in rate base (D, DUK, SO, ETR — no merchant leverage to nuclear scarcity), and pre-revenue fuel tech (LTBR, ASPI — NNE already carries the speculative leg).
Electricity is the binding constraint on the AI buildout and electrification. Unregulated generators with nuclear/gas fleets, grid equipment, electrical components, and the contractors who build it. The demand-growth story utilities haven't had in twenty years.
Integrated majors, shale producers, services, refiners, and midstream — the index's inflation hedge and the anti-duration trade. Watch it against defensives for the commodity-vs-growth rotation.
The upstream commodity complex: oil and gas producers, copper, gold and silver miners, steel and aluminum, lithium and rare earths, fertilizer and grain merchants, and timberland — the price-takers whose earnings are the commodity price. The inflation, dollar and China-demand trade expressed through equities; watch it against Defensives and the Magnificent Seven for the real-assets-vs-duration rotation. Overlap with the energy basket is deliberate — this one drops the refiners, pipes and services and adds the metals, agriculture and timber legs.