Uranium stocks bullish outlook Uranium stock picks for 2021
The following report will discuss the potential outlook for the uranium market and its stocks (especially Cameco) on which basis superior stocks are picked under the premise to increase the portfolios risk and return potential by applying geographical risk spreading mechanics and return optimizing technical analysis strategies.
1. Macro Outlook
It is well known that nuclear energy is a cheap and environmentally friendly energy sources which can be used for the base line electricity generation. Furthermore, many countries are currently working on the so called SMRs (small modular reactors) which will allow a much more flexible and broader application of nuclear energy. Generally speaking, an increasing need for alternative energy sources due to the worldwide decarbonization agenda would lead to a much stronger bias towards non fossil fuels. However, in the past, events like the Fukushima (2011) melt down or Chernobyl have put a dark shadow over nuclear energy due to its dangerous fallout potential. As more and more countries are committing to a low or net zero carbon goal, demand for “clean” sources will significantly increase. Based on the energy outlook published yearly by BP (www.bp.com) the main energy gap will be filled with renewables, while a considerable amount will also consist of nuclear energy. Based on this outlook its evident that early investments in renewable energy or key resources in that field (Lithium, Cobalt, Rare earths, Nickel, Copper) are a good decision. Unfortunately, most of these sectors are already hovering around or way past their all-time highs which reduces the risk reward potential. This is mainly because the potential growth is already discounted in today’s prices and many investors have those investments on their radar already for a while. This is where nuclear energy comes into play, based on the this analysis an early investment in uranium stocks is still a good choice even though they performed pretty well in the 6 months (100-200%, however most assets did..). The more important point here is that those prices are still comparably cheap to their all-time highs which makes them pretty interesting from a risk reward perspective. As renewable energies stocks are already at their highs, uranium stocks seem to just have started to move upwards after a long bear and stagnation period. Currently there is a debate that the uranium prices are usually tied to long term contracts and a spot market is almost nonexistent. Based on that a significant increase in earnings for uranium mines is due when those contracts run out and new contracts have to be repriced under spot terms with higher prices. Some bullish analysts claim that this will happen within the next 2 years. The only question remaining is how quickly will the increase of nuclear energy in the global energy mix move forward (some countries are still reducing their exposure like Germany) and will the supply in uranium favorably not be able to catch up with that pace? Based on some research, currently there are 53 additional NPPs (Nuclear Power Plant) under construction, 8 of them in the EU. According to the IAEO over 100 NPPs are planned and further 300 are in their feasibility study phase. Especially China and India seem to contribute majorly, where China has planned to expand its Nuclear Energy usage from 4% to 20% until 2030. These big players should certainly outweigh any facility closures in EU.
2. Uranium deposits & potential stock candidates
Referring to below internet sources, major uranium deposits can be found in Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada and Russia (descending order) which gives potential to decrease the idiosyncratic risk through diversification by investing in different companies and countries. When using the market cap and field of business as the main filtering criteria, below table will give a good summary of potential candidates:
Kazatomprom - Kazakhstan
Cameco - Canada
NexGen Energy - Canada
Paladin Energy - Australia
Energy Fuels - Canada
Altius Minerals - Canada
Uranium Participation - Canada
Uranium Energy - Canada
Centrus Energy - Canada
3. Technical analysis (Cameco)
The long-term perspective (left Chart) beautifully shows the extent to which we are still at the beginning of a potential major uranium super bull cycle. In contrast to that, the short-term perspective shows that the current bull trend came to an end as 50MA which was perfectly supporting the price got violated. However, this no shows to just have been a short breather or interim consolidation where traders are taking some profits which were able to increase their stakes by approx. 50% since December. Until the ATH there would be room for an increase of up to 4 times of the current share price.
4. Possible Technical Trading Strategy
Since there are some strong fundamentals pointing upwards it might be a good idea to apply a long only algorithm strategy based on moving averages. Nowadays every long strategy is not a bad idea as increasing M2 levels are inflating all assets.
In General, the application of the moving average in combination with a fundamental trend perspective allows good market timing in combination with risk management. As the outlook in general is bullish one should always buy whenever a trend is being established by the actual price, crossing from below the MA above. ON the other side one should sell wehnever the MA is crossed from above the MA towards down.Here you can find an example of such a strategy applied for Cameco starting from November 2020 until now.
From today’s perspective one could ask how to enter the market. For me personoally now its a very good time to buy Cameco as prices freshly crossed up again the MA which would lead to a fresh buy order. It seems like prices just took a small breather while bouncing back from the blue supporting line and continuing the bullish path with the MA50. It’s very important not to trade against the fundamental direction therefore its recommended not to short the stocks even though it might appear that there lies some potential profit as well.
5. The other uranium stocks
As a sumary for all uranium stocks one could say that the current up movement approximately started at the same time for all uranium stocks (approx. December 2020). As it could be anticipated smaller companies have performed better during the bull run, probably due to the higher risk factor and extended internal leverage structures. Currently the prices seem to consolidate or even reverse in their trend direction. Finally, a good investment mix would be a combination of different geographic locations. Thus, combining Kazatoprom with NexGenEnergy and Cameco should be a good choice. It would include the big names while also being quite diversified. (Kazakhstan, Canada). Further diversification could be achieved by finding a suitable uranium stock located in Australia.
6. ETF
Finally, if less technical and more long-term investing is the favored approach it’s a good idea to invest into a Uranium ETF which would spread the risk at low cost due to a very diversified portfolio within the uranium segment held by the Fund. It should rather be seen as an invest into the industry than into a specific stock. The Fund usually charge some management fees which are however very low (up to 1%). One such example would be GLOBAL X URANIUM ETF. In case this sparks your interest please do not hesitate to reach out as it would be necessary to prepare a separate analysis where the fact sheets of those competing ETFs need to be compared.
GUYS THIS WAS MY FIRST PUBLIC ANALYSIS PLS LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!! AUCH GERNE IN DEUTSCH :)
