Uranium Is Back Near $90 a Pound Because Data Centers Need Power That Doesn't Take the Night Off
Spot yellowcake sits near $90 a pound and long-term contract prices are at an 18-year high. The book owns this build-out through the companies that build the electricity, not through the ore.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Friday, September 11, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2026 edition
Key Points
Spot uranium trades near $90 a pound, its highest since early February and up to five times the post-Fukushima trough.
Long-term contract prices are at their highest in at least 18 years, a longer-dated signal than the spot market gives.
Nordic utility Fortum signed a deal with Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google to power Finnish data centers, extending the life of its Loviisa nuclear plant.
BHP Group's (BHP) new chief executive called uranium very attractive, though the miner still produces it only as a byproduct of copper.
UBS projects uranium supply deficits stretching into the 2030s and beyond as production growth lags demand.
~$90/lb
Uranium spot price, near a 7-month high
18 years
High in long-term contract prices
5x
Above the post-Fukushima trough
2030s
UBS sees supply deficits running to
Electricity demand from data centers has revived a market that spent more than a decade in the doldrums. Utilities are buying supply years ahead of when they will need it.
In one line: Data-center power demand has pushed uranium near $90 a pound and contract prices to an 18-year high, and the book owns that trend through the builders rather than the metal.
For a decade after Fukushima, uranium was the commodity nobody wanted to discuss at parties, which is saying something about commodities. Then the world started building machines that think, and it turned out those machines are extraordinarily thirsty. Spot yellowcake now trades near $90 a pound.
Why the ore woke up
That's the highest since early February and as much as five times the post-Fukushima trough. More telling is the long-term contract market, where utilities lock in supply years ahead of delivery: those prices are at their highest in at least 18 years. Data centers need power that still runs at three in the morning in February, and the public has already noticed what they do to local grids and local bills. Nuclear answers both objections at once. This week Nordic utility Fortum agreed to supply Alphabet's (GOOGL) Finnish data centers, extending the life of its Loviisa plant.
The miners are circling without quite committing. Asked on a recent earnings call whether the world's biggest miner had turned bullish, BHP Group's (BHP) new chief executive, Brandon Craig, called uranium “very attractive” — then made clear BHP still digs it up as a byproduct of the copper it actually wants. UBS expects supply deficits into the 2030s and beyond, which is the sort of forecast that gets revised in both directions.
How the book owns this, and how it doesn't
Plainly: the model portfolios hold no uranium miner and no uranium fund. None. The exposure to this build-out runs through the companies that build the electricity — GE Vernova (GEV) and Quanta Services (PWR), both held, and both of which rallied hard by Friday's close. That's deliberate. A commodity price and a mining company's earnings are related the way weather and a farmer's income are related: genuinely, but with a great deal of room in between for costs, permits, politics and one bad mine.
Single-commodity funds also tend to arrive in a portfolio shortly after a price chart has already gone vertical, which is the wrong end of the trade to be joining. If a story like this one has you reaching for something new, the more useful first question isn't whether uranium keeps climbing — it's whether you already own the theme somewhere you've forgotten about. That's ten minutes of looking, and it's a good use of a review.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Hold — own the build-out through the builders, not the ore
The uranium price is a real signal about power demand, but the book expresses it through GE Vernova and Quanta Services — companies with earnings, order books and customers — rather than through a commodity.
General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular: a commodity price moving is not the same thing as an investable position, and single-commodity funds concentrate risk in a way diversified equity exposure does not. A theme is usually easier to own through profitable operating companies than through the raw material itself.
In the book, GE Vernova (GEV) and Quanta Services (PWR) are held as the power build-out exposure, and both rallied hard by Friday's close. There is no uranium miner and no commodity fund in the model portfolios, and nothing new is being added this week under the cautious house bias.
