On Monday, X-energy (XE) signed its second Amazon-backed reactor project in the US, a 960MW, 12-unit plant on the site of a retired AEP coal plant in Indiana. The same day, its stock sat at $10.36, the bottom of its 52-week range and 71% below its high.
That, in one sentence, is the state of the nuclear renaissance in October 2026: the customers have never been bigger, and the shareholders have never been more nervous.
Regular readers know we have been tracking the AI-nuclear trade since before Microsoft agreed to restart Three Mile Island back in September 2024, and lately we have been fixated on the growing gap between the physical market and the tickers, first in "The Nuclear Renaissance Disconnect: Utilities Plan Big While Stocks Lag" (Sept 22) and then a week later in "Uranium Term Prices Hit A Record... So Why Is Nuclear Getting Nuked?" Since then the gap has only widened. Goldman's clean-tech team led by Brian Lee put a number on it in its latest Nuclear Nuggets: Global reactor tracker (available to pro subs):
Nuclear equities materially underperformed the broader market over the past three months, with our nuclear coverage averaging a -21% return
