The Department of Energy's $17.5 billion loan commitment for 10 new Westinghouse reactors has not lifted the two most popular uranium ETFs, which are both down year to date. A third fund holding physical uranium alongside mining stocks has outperformed both over the past year and five years.
The Department of Energy's $17.5 billion loan commitment for 10 new Westinghouse reactors has done little for the two ETFs most retail investors use to bet on the uranium supply chain. Global X Uranium ETF (URA) is down 0.56% year to date. The VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NLR) has fallen 8.31%, even as Washington moves to fund the industry both funds track.
Why the incumbents miss the tailwind
NLR's largest holding, Constellation Energy, sits at 9.62% of the fund and tracks wholesale electricity prices more closely than uranium spot prices or reactor orders. That utility weighting helps explain why the fund trailed in a strong policy year.
URA sits closer to the supply chain, but Cameco alone makes up 22.18% of the fund, concentrating the trade in one producer. Despite the drift lower, more than $850 million has flowed into URA, with retail investors buying the dip.
Sprott's physical uranium edge
The Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM) offers a more direct line to the DOE spending story. It holds 82.37% in uranium and related equities and 17.63% in physical uranium through the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust, so spot and term uranium prices feed into net asset value without waiting for a miner's quarterly results.
That structure has produced 15.5% returns over the past year. URA returned 12.84% and NLR returned 0.25% over the same period. URNM's five-year return reached 113.07%.
The cost of switching
URNM's edge carries tradeoffs. Its 0.75% expense ratio runs 6 basis points above URA's and 23 basis points above NLR's.
Its $2.1 billion asset base is smaller and more volatile without a utility holding to cushion swings. The fund is also down 5.45% year to date, so the DOE announcement has not spared it either.
In a taxable account, swapping out of URA outright could trigger capital gains given its 167.42% five-year return, though directing new contributions into URNM would not carry that cost. The report frames the comparison as most relevant for investors whose original thesis was the uranium supply chain itself, rather than nuclear power broadly.
Source: 24/7 Wall St.
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