3 Nuclear Energy Stocks That Are Quietly Becoming the Trades of the Year

Key Points

Cameco is the world's second largest uranium miner by production and is present through almost the whole nuclear fuel cycle.

Constellation Energy is America's largest green energy company and its largest nuclear operator.

BWX Technologies is a leading naval nuclear reactor company pushing the limits of nuclear fission technology.

• 10 stocks we like better than Cameco ›

We've had the technology for nuclear power generation since the 1950s but aside from France, every country has continued to favor oil, natural gas, and coal since then. That's changing though.

Around the world, nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance of renewed interest and investment. In the U.S. alone, the Department of Energy has set a goal to triple America's nuclear output by the middle of the century. Big tech companies are working with power companies to resurrect nuclear plants to power data centers.

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As a result of that interest, nuclear stocks have been surging. And these three appear to be some of the best.

From the mine

Up first is Cameco (NYSE: CCJ), one of the world's premier uranium miners. In 2025, it was responsible for 15% of all the uranium produced in the world that year. The only company that produced more was Kazakhstan's state-owned company Kazatomprom.

The company is present through virtually the entirety of the nuclear fuel cycle. It has two high-grade mines in Canada and a third low-grade mine in Kazakhstan. It also has a fuel services division that refines and produces finished uranium fuel rods.

Finally, through a joint venture with Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM) it has 49% ownership of Westinghouse, an engineering company that produces the AP1000, which is the most advanced nuclear reactor on the market today.

For 2025, Cameco's revenue grew 11% and it maintains both a high net profit margin of 16.9% and a low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, which is good to see in an industry as capital intensive as mining.

To the reactor

All the uranium Cameco mines is for reactors around the world, including the 94 in the United States. And the single largest operator of those nuclear reactors is Constellation Energy Corp (NASDAQ: CEG).

Constellation is a pretty straightforward energy company with one key thing that sets it apart. It's both America's largest producer of green energy and its largest producer of nuclear energy. It owns 21 of America's nuclear reactors and it will be adding a new one soon.

The company has partnered with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) to recomission part of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant as the Crane Clean Energy Center. Once completed (targeted for 2028), Microsoft has a 20-year power purchase agreement with Constellation to buy energy from the plant for its data centers in the area.

As an energy utility, Constellation is fairly stable and slow-growing. For 2025, its revenue was up 8.3% over 2024 and it recorded a net profit margin of 9.1%. It also has a healthy debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61.

It does pay a dividend, which it has increased every year since 2022. But it only yields 0.55% at present. However, with a payout ratio of 20.96%, Constellation has plenty of room to keep growing that dividend into the future.

Speaking of the future, Constellation's nuclear fleet represents the current generation of nuclear technology well, but there are plenty of companies pioneering the frontier of fission technology.

And onto the future

BWX Technologies (NYSE: BWXT) has been a leader in the naval nuclear reactor industry since the 1950s when it designed and produced components for the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarine. Since then, it has produced over 400 nuclear reactors for the U.S. Navy.

Its history in naval nuclear technology has given BWX a lot of experience making nuclear reactors work on a small scale. And it is bringing that capability to bear with its BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor or BANR, which is a small modular reactor (SMR).

SMRs work on the same principles as a conventional nuclear reactor, they're just smaller. BWX's BANR is no different. It's designed to be built in parts in a factory and then shipped out and put together at its final location. Once constructed, it can generate 75 megawatts of power, which makes it a potential solution to the power needs of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

And where other SMR companies are start-ups focused solely on developing SMRs, BWX has plenty of revenue from its existing business. For 2025, it brought in revenue of $3.19 billion, up 18% over 2024. Its earnings per share (EPS) grew 20% over the same period. The company also maintains a net profit margin of 10.3%.

If Cameco and Constellation represent the present of nuclear technology, BWX represents the future, the bleeding edge of where nuclear engineering is headed. All three of them are worth a look and I expect the nuclear bull run will continue through the remainder of this year and into the future.

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James Hires has positions in BWX Technologies and Cameco. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends BWX Technologies, Brookfield Asset Management, Cameco, Constellation Energy, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.