This Nuclear Stock Is Down More Than 60% Over the Past Year and Could Be a Screaming Buy

NuScale Power has fallen more than 62% over the past year, but the article argues the decline was driven mainly by a $500 million stock filing and softer 2025 revenue of $31.5 million versus $37 million in 2024. A key positive is that NuScale remains the only small modular reactor developer with NRC design approvals for both its 50MW and 77MW models, which management says is a critical step toward commercialization. The stock is presented as a high-volatility buy idea benefiting from AI-driven data center power demand.

Analysis

The market is treating SMR like a broken story, but the more important signal is that the company has moved from “science project” risk to “execution and financing” risk. NRC design approval compresses the timeline to commercialization, which matters because in nuclear the optionality is not in the technology alone but in reducing regulatory uncertainty enough to let strategic capital, project developers, and utilities underwrite the next phase. That said, the current setup is still dominated by balance-sheet gravity: until there is visible non-dilutive funding or a signed deployment pipeline, every rally risks being sold into by investors expecting another capital raise.

The second-order winner is not just SMR itself, but the broader AI power ecosystem: data center operators, grid equipment vendors, and even gas peakers benefit if nuclear modularity becomes a credible long-duration baseload alternative. If SMR can actually convert approvals into contracted projects, the competitive damage to other advanced nuclear developers is asymmetric because approvals create a time-to-market moat that is hard to replicate and can pull engineering talent, partners, and customer attention toward the approved platform. The flip side is that this also pressures the rest of the nuclear thematic basket to prove they have a real commercialization path rather than a policy beta trade.

Consensus seems to be overestimating near-term revenue sensitivity and underestimating the option value of de-risking. The stock has already priced in dilution and weak reported sales, but it has not fully discounted the possibility that approval status becomes a procurement advantage in an AI-constrained power market over the next 12-24 months. The key risk is a dead zone where no project awards arrive before the next funding need, which would keep the stock hostage to sentiment and financing headlines rather than fundamentals.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long SMR only as a tactical 6-12 month catalyst trade, ideally on post-dilution weakness; target a 20-30% rebound if project/partner announcements follow, but size small because financing risk can easily cut 25%+ before any commercial win.
• Use SMR as a call-option proxy on nuclear adoption: buy Jan-2027 out-of-the-money calls rather than stock if you want exposure to commercialization upside while capping downside at premium paid.
• Pair trade: long SMR / short a less de-risked advanced nuclear peer or clean-power theme name with weaker regulatory progress; this isolates approval-milestone alpha versus generic nuclear sentiment.
• Avoid chasing on strength if the stock rallies solely on narrative; wait for confirmation of non-dilutive capital or a signed customer contract, because the next 1-2 financing events are the real gatekeepers to sustained re-rating.
• For AI power exposure, prefer a basket long on grid and power-infrastructure names over a single-name SMR bet; those names monetize the data-center buildout now, while SMR remains a longer-dated execution option.