Nuclear, Uranium & Photonics Daily
SEQH Capital Research · Trading & Research Desk
Edition 008 · Tuesday, October 6, 2026 · Post-close
Prices as of 4:00 PM ET close unless stamped otherwise.
The Tape in 60 Seconds
$11.5B for existing reactors in one week, and the whole nuclear complex rallied hard on it.
Two deals for existing reactors hit on the same day. The DOE is lending Vistra $4.2B to upgrade its nuclear fleet in Pennsylvania and Ohio. And Google signed a long-term agreement with Constellation that reportedly supports more than $4.3B of investment and 890 MW of additional output from existing plants. Add last Wednesday’s $3B Amazon–Calvert Cliffs deal, and that’s about $11.5B committed to keeping current reactors running and running them harder, inside a week.
The reaction was the biggest we’ve logged. Constellation rose ~13.9% and Vistra ~10.9%, the top two gainers in the S&P 500. Our five-name nuclear basket gained 6.75% vs. +0.58% for the S&P, a 617 bp outperformance. The fuel cycle led: LEU +8.80%, UEC +8.13% and CCJ +6.35% on 1.9x its average volume.
The broader market helped: the 10-year eased 3.6 bp to 5.275%, the S&P 500 posted its first close above 7,800 (a record), and the Nasdaq set another record.
Three takeaways:
The market is putting real money behind existing reactors. Three deals in seven days point at the same thing: uprates and life extensions on reactors already running. That’s the sequence we flagged in Edition 006 (”reactor owners are being paid first”).
Everything rallied, including names the deals don’t touch. SMR developers OKLO (+7.17%) and SMR (+4.43%) rallied on sentiment, not company news. NuScale traded 44.4M shares, the heaviest volume in our log.
Over two sessions the basket is up 7.38%. That’s more than erasing the prior week’s −4.14%.
Key numbers
Nuclear basket (5 names): +6.75% vs. S&P +0.58% · 2-day +7.38%
Existing-fleet capital committed, 9/30–10/6: ~$11.5B
Google–Constellation: 890 MW added from existing plants · ~$4.8/W (as reported)
US 10-year: 5.275% · ▼ 3.6 bp
S&P 500: 7,818.93 · record close · first close above 7,800
SPUT discount: −11.49% (10/5) · widened 49 bp, ending a five-session narrowing streak
01 · Macro Tape
S&P 500: 7,818.93 · ▲ 44.98 (+0.58%) · record close, 0.03% above the August high
Dow Jones: 51,521.28 · ▲ 253.38 (+0.49%)
Nasdaq Composite: 27,599.79 · ▲ 122.48 (+0.45%) · record close
Treasury yields:
2-year: 4.791% · ▼ 4.2 bp
5-year: 5.030% · ▼ 3.6 bp
7-year: 5.151% · ▼ 3.8 bp
10-year: 5.275% · ▼ 3.6 bp
30-year: ~5.655% · little changed after breaching 5.7% intraday Monday
Read: this was the first broad bond rally since the jobs report, with yields down 3.6–4.2 bp from the 2-year through the 10-year. Oil also fell, and Nvidia and AMD (+2.8%) led tech. Storage names were the S&P’s biggest decliners: Seagate −8.2% and Western Digital −6.6%.
For our sector, the rate relief was the backdrop, not the cause. A 3.6 bp drop in the 10-year doesn’t explain a 6.75% move in nuclear. The capital commitments do.
02 · Reactors, Utilities & Power
The existing-fleet trade: three deals in seven days
Amazon–Constellation, 9/30: 20-year PPA for 690 MW at Calvert Cliffs, including a 190 MW uprate in 2030–32, supporting more than $3B of investment and a 20-year license renewal.
Google–Constellation, 10/6: a long-term agreement supporting more than $4.3B of Constellation investment and 890 MW of additional output from existing plants on the PJM grid, per TipRanks and 24/7 Wall St. reporting.
DOE–Vistra loan, 10/6: $4.2B to finance upgrades across Vistra’s nuclear fleet in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Desk math: cost per watt across deal types
Google–Constellation uprates: $4.3B ÷ 890 MW ≈ $4.8/W of new output.
Calvert Cliffs: $3B ÷ 1,980 MW (existing plus uprate) ≈ $1.5/W of capacity secured for another 20 years.
Korea framework, new AP1000/APR1400 builds: ≈ $12.7/W.
The point: getting more output from existing reactors costs roughly 40% of new-build per watt, and extending a reactor’s life costs about an eighth. Uprates also deliver power in the late 2020s, while new builds deliver in the 2030s. That’s why hyperscalers are funding existing reactors first.
Utilities (not in our basket)
CEG: ~$304.76 · ▲ ~13.9% · top S&P 500 gainer
VST: ~$160.62 · ▲ ~10.9% · second-largest S&P 500 gainer
Supply chain and developers
BWXT: $145.70 · ▲ 7.65%. Range 138.50–147.00 on 1.92M shares. 10.5% above Friday’s 52-week low of $131.86. Market cap $13.35B, about 24.3x the midpoint of its 2030 free-cash-flow target. The prior evening’s BANR microreactor selection and today’s existing-fleet deals both feed the commercial component business BWXT outlined at Investor Day.
OKLO: $38.55 · ▲ 7.17%. Range 37.00–39.30 on 16.7M shares, 2.2x Monday’s volume. 12.1% above its 52-week low. Market cap $7.17B.
SMR: $8.02 · ▲ 4.43%. Range 7.92–8.37 on 44.4M shares, the highest volume in our eight-session log and 2.5x Monday. 11.2% above its 52-week low. NuScale confirmed its Q3 call for Thursday, Nov. 5, at 5:00 PM ET.
Read: the deals went to reactor owners (CEG, VST), and their stocks led as you’d expect. BWXT’s +7.65% fits too, since uprates and life extensions need components and fuel. The developers are the outlier: OKLO and SMR rallied on deals that don’t change their licensing timelines or their customer lists. NuScale’s 44M-share session is the biggest test of the “sellers running out of shares” read we flagged Monday. If SMR holds above $8 with volume staying elevated, that read strengthens. If it gives the move back, today was sentiment.
03 · Uranium & Fuel Cycle
Equities (Tuesday close)
LEU: $153.88 · ▲ 8.80%. Range 146.71–159.42 on 1.41M shares, 2.2x Monday. 13.4% above its 52-week low, but still 22.9% below its $199.64 September offering price.
UEC: $10.11 · ▲ 8.13%. Range 9.59–10.39 on 16.2M shares, about 1.6x average. It closed above $10 for the first time in our log. 13.5% above its 52-week low. Market cap $5.01B.
CCJ: $93.02 · ▲ 6.35%. Range 89.40–94.57 on 5.96M shares, about 1.9x its 3.21M average. Market cap $40.51B. 31.2% below its 52-week high. At a $50B Westinghouse valuation, Cameco’s ~$24.5B stake equals about 60% of its market cap, down from ~66% a week ago as the stock rallied.
Why the fuel cycle moved too: uprates and life extensions raise fuel demand directly. A reactor running at higher output burns more enriched uranium, and a 20-year license extension adds two decades of reload demand that wasn’t in utility planning before. That runs through conversion and enrichment (LEU) to mined uranium (UEC, CCJ).
Physical market: Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (U.U / SRUUF)
NAV per unit (10/5): $21.54 · ▼ 0.02%
Market price (10/5 close): $19.06, a −11.49% discount, 49 bp wider than −11.00% on 10/2
Discount path: −13.63% → −13.21% → −12.99% → −11.69% → −11.00% → −11.49%. The five-session narrowing streak ended Monday.
SPUT-implied spot (10/5): $89.68/lb · ▼ $0.02
Implied $/lb at market price: ≈ $80.29, excluding cash
U3O8 held: 81,697,348 lb, unchanged
NAV YTD: +8.79%
Read: the physical vehicle and the equities split on Monday. The SPUT discount widened while CCJ rose 2.7%. Tuesday’s SPUT print, published after the TSX close and not yet available, will show whether the physical vehicle joined today’s equity move. Spot has sat in a $0.25/lb band ($89.57–$89.82) for eight readings, while UEC moved 8.1% in one session. The rally is in equities pricing future fuel demand, not in the spot market.
04 · Photonics & Optical Interconnect
Tuesday closes for our optics names were not verified at publication. Monday’s verified close for reference: LITE $1,091.67 (+0.58%), after a new 52-week high of $1,124.40 intraday.
Read: the AI tape stayed firm today. Nasdaq and S&P records were led by Nvidia and AMD, while storage (Seagate, Western Digital) sold off. Today’s capital moved from the AI-hardware trade toward AI power, with CEG and VST the S&P’s top two gainers. On Monday we noted Lumentum alone ($97.9B) was worth 1.53x our five nuclear names combined. Today the nuclear basket added about $4.4B of market cap in one session.
05 · Catalyst Calendar
Wed 10/7: SPUT’s 10/6 print, to see whether the physical vehicle followed the equities
TBD: details of the Google–Constellation agreement (pricing, sites, timing) (CEG)
TBD: terms of the DOE–Vistra loan and which reactors it covers (VST)
TBD: BWXT–Prodigy definitive agreement (BWXT)
TBD: formal signing of the U.S.–Korea framework (CCJ, BEP)
Oct (TBD): possible Westinghouse public IPO filing (CCJ, BEP)
Oct 20–21: World Nuclear Supply Chain conference, Manila
Late Oct: FOMC decision
Fri 10/30: Cameco Q3 results (CCJ)
Mon 11/2, after close: BWX Technologies Q3 results (BWXT)
~Wed 11/4: Centrus Q3 results (LEU)
Thu 11/5: Lumentum fiscal Q1 results; NuScale Q3 call, 5:00 PM ET (both confirmed)
Fri 11/6: October jobs report
~Tue 11/10: Oklo Q3 results (OKLO)
06 · Desk Read: What We’re Watching
i. The ordering we described is showing up in prices. In Edition 006 we ranked the sector by business model: reactor owners first, supply chain second, developers last. Today the two reactor owners led the S&P (CEG +13.9%, VST +10.9%), the fuel cycle followed (LEU +8.8%, UEC +8.1%) and BWXT gained 7.7%. The developers rallied too, but on sentiment. Our test for the rest of the week: names with a direct link to existing-fleet spending (CEG, VST, fuel, BWXT components) should hold gains better than names without one (OKLO, SMR).
ii. Rates were the backdrop; capital commitments were the catalyst. On Monday the 10-year rose 3.8 bp to a new high and the basket matched the S&P. Today it fell 3.6 bp and the basket beat the S&P by 617 bp. A symmetric 3–4 bp move in yields can’t explain that asymmetry. What changed between the two days was about $8.5B of new commitments for existing reactors. For the first time in our log, company and policy news outweighed the bond market.
iii. The SPUT print tomorrow is the cross-check. The equities moved hard and spot didn’t. If Tuesday’s SPUT print shows the discount narrowing back toward −11% or better, physical uranium is confirming the equity move. If the discount stays near −11.5%, the move is concentrated in equities pricing future fuel demand, and the physical market hasn’t seen new buying yet.
Method
SPUT-implied spot = market value of U3O8 held ÷ pounds held.
$/lb at market = unit price ÷ pounds per unit (0.2374 lb), excluding cash.
Baskets are equal-weighted simple averages of verified closes. The nuclear basket is CCJ, UEC, OKLO, SMR and BWXT. “2-day” runs from the 10/2 close to the 10/6 close.
$/W comparisons use disclosed or reported dollar amounts and megawatts. The Google–Constellation figures are as reported by TipRanks and 24/7 Wall St. The Korea framework $/W uses approximate standard unit ratings. These are rough comparisons, not disclosed per-watt costs.
CEG and VST changes come from the S&P 500 top-gainers list at the close; neither is in our basket.
Where a close was not verified at publication, the line says so.
For informational and educational purposes only. Nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures come from third-party sources believed to be reliable but not guaranteed; verify before acting. Past performance does not indicate future results.
© 2026 SEQH Capital Research · Next edition: Wednesday 10/7, post-close