Key Points
A stock that just hit a 52-week low doesn’t usually need much to bounce. NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) found that out in August, gaining 10.1% during the month according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, after a brutal July.
Has the nuclear energy stock bottomed out, and should investors buy it while they still can amid the artificial intelligence (AI) power crunch?
NuScale’s Q2 revenue plunged 99%
The biggest single-day pop came around Aug. 25 when NuScale announced plans to roll out nuclear-specific AI tools built with Nuclearn and NPX’s AtomAssist platform. Early testing showed a cut of up to 80% in the time it takes engineers to find key design information.
Simply put, NuScale, which is developing small modular reactors (SMRs), plans to use custom nuclear AI to sift through mountains of technical documents and regulatory rules to extract data quickly. That should mean quicker decisions and no costly project delays as a reactor moves from design to deployment.
Earlier in the month, though, the news was nowhere near as flattering. NuScale kicked off August by reporting revenue of only $75,000 for the second quarter, down 99 % from $8 million a year earlier.
The slump wasn’t really about business erosion. It was a job ending, as NuScale finished front-end engineering design work on a project in Romania. The company doesn’t have anything meaningful yet to replace that revenue with. It also continues to incur big losses and burn cash.
Should you buy NuScale Power stock now?
NuScale ended Q2 with $1.9 billion in cash and investments, up $900 million from Q1. On Aug. 11, it filed to sell another $750 million in shares. That’s more stock dilution, and a bet that only pays off if NuScale can sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) before investors run out of patience.
That’s the single biggest development investors are waiting for, as commercial execution remains unproven. NuScale has the regulatory head start as its SMR design is already approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The AI boom has created an insatiable demand from hyperscalers and data centers for massive, uninterrupted, carbon-free energy. NuScale’s certified SMR design puts it in a prime position to meet that need, but commercial execution remains unproven with its first operational reactor still years away.
Until its commercial development partner, ENTRA1 Energy translates non-binding framework agreements into signed PPAs and turns regulatory milestones into concrete factory orders, NuScale Power stock will keep trading on pure speculation rather than revenue or earnings visibility.
Should you buy stock in NuScale Power right now?
Before you buy stock in NuScale Power, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and NuScale Power wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $421,997!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,413,876!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 978% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 213% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
Neha Chamaria has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends NuScale Power. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.