We live in a highly complex world, and the events of the past 5-6 years, especially since the COVID pandemic outbreak, have proven that unpredictability has become the norm. This unpredictability has also translated into significant volatility in financial markets across the globe. It is therefore no surprise that investors and holders of wealth have sought new options to hedge against potential future financial and geopolitical instability.
Apart from the tried-and-true strategy of diversifying investments across asset classes, such as equities, bonds, and fixed income products, investors also often gravitate towards assets that are perceived to have less price volatility or, at a minimum, are unlikely to dramatically lose value. These can include financial instruments like money market funds and government treasuries, but they also now encompass a range of other assets, such as gold, silver, and other precious metals. Notably, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have also emerged as another method of wealth management, although these have proven to be more prone to large price swings.
Given the rising financial market unpredictability, it is perhaps no surprise that investors have been seeking alternatives to traditional ways of securing their wealth. It is within this framework that uranium has clearly emerged as a potential “store of value” for some investors. While uranium as an investment thesis has existed for many decades, the idea that uranium is a commodity that can maintain its value for a long time is a more recent phenomenon. The latest trend of heavy financial buying of uranium began in earnest in 2021 with the advent of the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (SPUT), which took over the old Uranium Participation Corporation (UPC). This newcomer with major financial wherewithal ushered the market into what could be termed the “SPUT spot era” and was perhaps the clearest example of this shift in investor thinking about the way uranium not only has upward price potential but also represents a commodity whose value will remain strong. It is clearly not a coincidence that Sprott’s other physical commodity trusts include those with holdings in gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper – the latter of which was just added this March. All Sprott physical fund products – uranium included – now represent stores of value to certain degrees.
While gold has been the world’s favorite store of value for a long time, others like silver and platinum have risen in prominence in recent years. However, yellow cake is clearly now in the mix as an important asset, with many investors holding shares in SPUT or Yellow Cake plc (YCA), or even their own physical uranium, as part of a diversified investment and wealth protection strategy.
Given uranium’s emergence as a store of value, it is instructive to compare it to gold specifically. As the chart on page 1 shows, recent global financial trends appear to have led both uranium and gold to experience somewhat similar price movements, especially since the 2016-2017 timeframe. While uranium has certainly seen more volatility in terms of spot price movements in the past decade, gold has generally been on a continuous upward price trend since early 2016, although the past week has shown that gold prices are also prone to volatility. However, when compared to historical prices, both gold and uranium have risen dramatically in the past 5-6 years, which clearly lines up with the market and geopolitical instability seen around the world.
Still, uranium is not the same as gold or other precious metals. The key difference is that uranium has a very important use as a fuel for nuclear electricity production. While there are some minor industrial applications for precious metals, they do not come close to having a direct link to industrial production, let alone something as critical as nearly 10% of the world’s electricity supply. Thus, uranium is unique as both a key input to economic activity as well as an object that can hold value.
There are clearly important implications of this shift in investor views of uranium that the nuclear industry must recognize. For one, the idea that funds like SPUT or YCA are just temporary blips and will disappear from the market in a few years once investors tire of them is likely a big mistake. It is certainly possible that new ways to store value will emerge in the future, but now that uranium has become one of these market levers, it is hard to see it being readily dismissed anytime soon. Moreover, as long as nuclear power continues to show growth prospects and future demand for reactor fuel remains unfilled, investors are likely to see value in the uranium inventories held by these funds. We also remind folks that even during the depressed market conditions of the 2010s, UPC, which had been established in 2005 during the prior price spike period, never liquidated its holdings, and investors held onto UPC shares even when the outlook for nuclear power was rather gloomy.
Going forward, another important question is whether investors will continue to see a value proposition in acquiring even more holdings of physical uranium. If the first two and half months of this year are any indication, it seems that the immediate answer is a resounding “yes,” as SPUT and YCA combined have already purchased another ~6.4 million pounds U3O8 this year. Thus, it seems like the setup for further growth in investor uranium holdings remains: ongoing global financial and geopolitical volatility combined with anticipated growth prospects for nuclear power and uranium demand. How long this will last is certainly an open question, but, given that investors already hold well over 110 million pounds U3O8, it is difficult to perceive that uranium as a store of value will go away unless the need for uranium in the world completely falls apart. The chances of that happening are nearly zero, and thus uranium pricing will continue to be influenced by how investors view the other yellow metal.
However, even if the investment community’s participation in the physical uranium market is here to stay, this does not mean that their activity will be constant. As we have seen since the advent of SPUT in mid-2021, there are times of large capital raisings and heavy spot uranium buying followed often by protracted periods of limited or no activity. Thus, even if uranium remains a store of value over the long term, the future role of financials as buyers of additional uranium remains far from clear. Ultimately, this unpredictable financial buying will result in ongoing potential for larger price swings in spot uranium, even if this kind of price volatility is counter to investors’ general objective for uranium to serve as a durable store of value. Nevertheless, the end result is that uranium’s new classification as a store of value means that financials are here to stay, whether the rest of the nuclear industry likes it or not.
This article was originally published in the March 23, 2026 issue of the Ux Weekly.
Jonathan Hinze is President of UxC, LLC. He has been at UxC since 2006, during which time he has helped to expand the company’s products and consulting work in numerous ways. Mr. Hinze has nearly two decades of direct experience in the nuclear industry, and therefore has an extensive wealth of knowledge on the nuclear fuel cycle and reactor markets. One of his main areas of focus over the years has been nuclear reactor developments and global nuclear power forecasting as well as analyzing the future of the nuclear fuel markets and the reactor supply chain. His areas of expertise include an in-depth knowledge of the international nuclear marketplace, nuclear technologies, government policies, nonproliferation, and the strong interplay between all these forces on a domestic and international level. Mr. Hinze received a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from Haverford College and a Master of Arts in International Trade and Investment Policy from the George Washington University.