Nuclear Renaissance
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.
Performance
Follow the theme against the wider market.
Series before each basket's creation date are a backtest of the membership as of creation; live tracking starts at creation.
| Return | 1 day | 5 days | 20 days | 60 days | MTD | YTD | 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basket | +1.4% | +3.4% | -1.7% | +3.1% | +3.3% | -9.4% | -8.3% |
| vs FW 3000 | +1.7% | +3.2% | -1.3% | -3.0% | +2.7% | -20.0% | -23.0% |
Inside the basket · 13 stocks
Current members and the reasoning behind each inclusion. Returns are for individual stocks.
| Why it’s included | Added | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CEG | Largest US fleet; the Microsoft Crane restart PPA is the sector's repricing event | +4.9% | +8.0% | +10.9% | -15.0% | 2026-07-21 |
| MIR | Radiation detection and instrumentation across the fleet and new builds (Mirion) | +1.0% | +17.6% | +7.8% | -27.7% | 2026-07-21 |
| VST | Second-largest competitive fleet (Energy Harbor deal) levered to data-center PPAs | +3.5% | +8.9% | +6.2% | -7.2% | 2026-07-21 |
| UEC | US uranium ISR restart capacity (Uranium Energy) | +0.3% | -6.9% | +2.5% | -1.2% | 2026-07-21 |
| UUUU | White Mesa mill: uranium plus rare-earth co-processing (Energy Fuels) | +0.8% | -1.4% | +2.3% | -0.5% | 2026-07-21 |
| SMR | The only NRC-certified SMR design (NuScale); RoPower is the first deployment test | -0.6% | +4.4% | -1.3% | -31.6% | 2026-07-21 |
| PEG | The regulated exception: PSEG's merchant generation is essentially the Salem/Hope Creek nuclear fleet | -0.2% | +0.7% | -2.6% | -6.7% | 2026-07-21 |
| GEV | BWRX-300 SMR order book via GE Hitachi on top of the grid-equipment franchise | +0.0% | +3.3% | -4.9% | +44.4% | 2026-07-21 |
| NNE | Microreactors and fuel transport — the speculative end of the developer leg (Nano Nuclear) | +0.4% | -1.4% | -6.0% | -26.2% | 2026-07-21 |
| BWXT | Naval-reactor monopoly plus TRISO fuel and SMR components | -1.7% | +3.1% | -7.1% | -8.4% | 2026-07-21 |
| TLN | Susquehanna fleet plus the AWS campus PPA (Talen) | +3.7% | +7.1% | -8.8% | -15.4% | 2026-07-21 |
| LEU | The only US-owned enricher; the HALEU position (Centrus) | +2.0% | -1.1% | -9.1% | -28.4% | 2026-07-21 |
| OKLO | Aurora fast-microreactor developer: INL fuel award and a data-center LOI pipeline | +3.6% | +2.8% | -14.8% | -42.5% | 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-rebalanced, buy-and-hold between rebalances; dated membership changes take effect same-day.
Tracked since 2026-07-21. Membership decisions are documented below.
Read the methodology →Reading the returns
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: 0.81 across 1678 sessions. operators, OEMs and fuel in one fund; includes foreign listings (Cameco, Kepco) outside our US-only universes
Membership history & changes
- 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).