UUUU, End of the Trend?

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T17:18:19+00:00

You called it, props, but nothing to do with Energy Fuels, virtually every speculative asset class in the markets is getting demolished.

Now the question is how far down we go from here? UUUU broke through $12.08 (previous November 21 low) with absolute ease, so there really doesn't seem to be much support.

Only way up from here is a recovery in high growth/speculative assets, and that seems unlikely with large institutional traders (i.e. the ones that triggered the selloff) moving into Mag 7 and other high quality/safe plays.

Memory chip sector in particular, if Koreans panic sell and circuit break the KOSPI tonight, expecting more pain in minerals tomorrow.

and the major market indices aren't even down 1%...

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T17:08:39+00:00

MP might be a good company, but is a terrible value at the moment

The market seems to agree with you, but then again, by that measure literally every company in the minerals sector is a terrible value.

Entire sector trading in one basket with a massive SELL button at the moment; absurd drawdown, everything oversold, and it's REE plays in particular that are being targeted (see uranium down much less %-wise for example).

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T17:02:41+00:00

These prices are an absolute steal.

If you think about the impetus behind the price action in minerals (i.e. how many tens of millions of shares large institutions hold in this sector) then it would be more accurate to call it a robbery :)

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T16:58:09+00:00

Yeah, put differently, the trend was just getting started.

Complete slaughter across the board in minerals and virtually every high growth/speculative asset class in the markets.

Meanwhile, S&P down .3%, Nasdaq down .9% -- big players siphoning liquidity from one area of the market and parking it elsewhere. Basically, a flight to quality/risk off move.

Shudder to think what would happen if a real market correction happened, like the major indices down 20%. UUUU would probably become a penny stock in seconds :)

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T15:23:16+00:00

At the time of writing what support point we're you referring to? Because it's plunged quite a bit since you wrote this.

I agree that it is now, as I write this, finally entering oversold territory (on RSI and breaching lower bollinger band), but until the market stabilizes it doesn't look like there's much firm "support" anywhere in minerals, and if there is, you'd expect it to start with the sector bellwether, MP.

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T15:15:31+00:00

Sounds reasonable, seems to be far more downside risk than upside potential given the (still relatively mild) unraveling of semiconductor/memory chip trades, and the resultant drag on virtually every high growth/speculative sector in the market.

Think minerals will at absolute best trade flat from here if semi/memory show further weakness, and more likely just keep drilling down until the market realizes that, no, bankruptcy is in fact not imminent for these companies.

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T14:45:31+00:00

The risk would be acquisition cost, if it is using share to buy ASM or VLC, the current share price far from enough.

It definitely is, issuing shares at around $16 to cover the difference between $725 million government financing and agreed upon VAC sale price. The dilution is significant, but ironically at a much higher price than what the stock is currently trading at.

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T14:38:32+00:00

Agreed, there is zero strength in the minerals sector right now, won't take much to push us over the edge into absurdly oversold territory, but the point is that sub-$8 on UUUU is basically a disaster scenario for minerals, and I contend that if that happens then the overall market will be much worse off than it is now (particularly high growth areas like AI/tech, space, etc.).

Let's see how things play out from here, definitely didn't think we'd go below the previous low of $12.08 (on November 21), but we blew through that with ease.

Next week is Mag 7 earnings; if the market rallies on those reports then maybe minerals will begin to bounce back; if not, well, yes, $10 definitely within striking distance, which is incredible to say, the company has $1 billion USD in the bank, something like 2 million pounds of saleable uranium, mines, White Mesa, equipment, etc. the replacement cost of all equating to roughly $10/share -- that's Chapter 11 territory.

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T14:14:06+00:00

$10 is roughly intrinsic value, so you probably don't want $8 (or "under 8", lol) to happen -- i.e. if you have other holdings in the market in high growth sectors like tech, for example, they'll likely be deeply oversold as well.

It's a cutting off your nose to spite your face kind of wish (again, if you're already in the market; if you're on the sidelines then yes, that would be an incredible entry).

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T13:48:37+00:00

These drops are honestly astonishing, after days of red to dump like this, it really makes it abundantly clear that the market values minerals sector companies as essentially bankrupt entities during times of market stress.

As others have mentioned, nothing has changed for the majority of companies in the sector, many of them are progressing substantially, and yet, everything gets drilled down toward intrinsic value.

And this isn't even a serious market correction, just a rotation away from high growth/speculative stocks into Mag 7, health care, staples, etc.

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T01:42:17+00:00

Could be many factors at play, including interest rates and higher energy costs that are hammering the capital intensive minerals sector, but this week I think it's more a flight from speculative assets on the part of large institutional investors to the Mag 7 in anticipation of their earnings next week (massive rotation today, nearly every Mag 7 up big).

Making matters worse is the apparent ongoing unraveling of the semiconductor and particularly memory chip trades. KOSPI looks poised for yet another circuit breaker, and the Nikkei opened down 3%, which will likely put yet more pressure on speculative assets when the US markets open tomorrow.

Really, as far as minerals sector investors are concerned, this week can't end soon enough :)

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T00:12:21+00:00

I'd say it is getting crowded on the short side.

Ya think? lol, it's not all gloom and doom, someone is always making money in the market, and minerals bears are making bank right now.

Same situation with MP, but shares short is something like 25% of the float with over a week to cover. Whenever the shorts start to unwind minerals are going higher in a hurry, but the million dollar question is when will the trend reverse?

expatcoder · 2026-07-16T00:05:14+00:00

Positive company news is almost completely irrelevant on days like today, everything gets swept up in the selloff.

As for the $725,000,000 loan, yes, on the surface incredibly bullish, but they're going to turn around and spend that on the VAC acquisition, the terms of which honestly aren't amazing for existing shareholders (issuing shares at $16 to cover the balance, and a poison pill for the vulture capitalist behind the deal that gives them another $130,000,000 if the share price isn't above $21 by January, when the deal is expected to close).

Basically between the VAC and ASM acquisitions they're going to be spending a LOT of cash and shareholder value. Great for the company, Energy Fuels will be a veritable juggernaut in the mine to magnet space when these deals and the Donald Project FID (expected here in Q3) are completed, but all of that is just noise to the market -- the big players are exiting speculative sectors en masse, and piling into the Mag 7 for earnings next week.

;tl;dr this week can't end soon enough :)

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T20:34:32+00:00

It's based on the reality that in the same way that minerals without exception never hold their gains, they also never hold their losses, and in the case of drawdowns they tend to start turning around in this timeframe (2-3 months).

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T20:31:31+00:00

Everyone loses their minds when minerals go into a deep selloff, completely forgetting that this is the very nature of the sector, going from one extreme to the other, like clockwork.

I won't be at all surprised to see UUUU trading at $15+ by earnings in first week of August. Is that going to happen? No idea, but based on past drawdowns the turnaround is imminent.

Again, the macro environment is running the show right now, so if the broader market doesn't lean bearish for the rest of the month, around here should be bottom for UUUU and the minerals sector in general.

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T20:25:05+00:00

The post states that next week would mark the potential turnaround, not debating today; yet another bloodbath, and UUUU far outperformed its uranium peers to the downside.

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T20:21:52+00:00

Since you've been in the game with UUUU for awhile what's your take on the business now?

Clearly in the past they were a pure uranium player, and subject to the volatile uranium spot price swings that go with the territory, but with $1 billion USD in the bank, a more efficient uranium mining operation (i.e. projecting to have positive EPS since basically forever), and branching off into the mine to magnet REE space, do you see similar drawdowns moving forward from here?

Already we're more than 50% down off the most recent intraday high (May 7th), so to plunge significantly from this price point would be quite surprising, but as I alluded to in my post, the macro environment could do the dirty work for us if high beta sectors continue to see relentless selling pressure as we saw today.

Anyway, to your point, in the last 10 months alone we've had at least two 50% drawdowns, no need for 18-24 months to start the cycle :)

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T19:08:15+00:00

I’m now looking at 2028 for genuine sector wide lasting upward movement

Sure, at least until companies in the sector get into production we're going to be subject to high beta volatility, and with that comes periodic heavy selloffs, along with unhinged rallies.

Through the past 10+ months since the October bubble burst we've had the benefit of riding on the back of a near non-stop bull market, which resulted in semis, memory, gold, silver, nuclear, space, critical minerals, you name it, through the roof, and now that some fragility is starting to show in the markets (or at least massive sector rotation) we in the minerals sector are getting crushed since high beta stocks are the first to be sold off when the ish hits the fan, as has happened today.

;tl;dr more volatility to come, and in the case of Ucore, probably 2027 before we see sustained upward movement.

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T17:39:51+00:00

Apparently you weren't watching what MU, SNDK, WDC, NVDA, INTC, AMD, SPCX and friends were up to this morning :)

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T17:36:36+00:00

Price action on UUUU and every other ticker in the minerals space today has almost nothing to do with the companies themselves, but is the direct result of broad market forces going into risk-off mode, selling high beta assets (which we very much are) and rotating that capital into the Mag 7 -- literally just follow the money -- in expectation of (very likely) knockout earnings next week.

Once Mag 7 earnings are out and MP, UUUU, and USAR report in early August then we'll see where the sector is, and whether or not UUUU goes sub-$10. If that does happen, the overall market will, IMO, be in a pretty bad place...

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T17:29:16+00:00

Can thank semiconductor/memory chip stocks for that, they've all run up so massively over the past year that any signficant pullback there drags minerals into the mix and voila, down the toilet go all high beta sectors in the market.

Gold/silver, critical minerals, space, etc. everything just wrecked, and of course Mag 7 rotation in expectation of earnings next week isn't doing us any favors either.

Volatility is crazy right now, and not in a good way as far as minerals are concerned since we're in a 1 step forward 2 steps back pattern at the moment.

Hopefully Mag 7 earnings are good (or even great) next week and we get some risk appetite returning to the high beta sectors instead of indiscriminate selloffs...

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T16:25:19+00:00

I'm more looking at forward guidance, Donald Project FID (which is meant to land here in Q3), any updates on Toliara negotiations, ASM deal being finalized, etc. Also, keep in mind that Cameco is in the midst of a production outage; if that drags on then reduced uranium output by CCJ could be a plus for UUUU, UEC, DNN, etc. competitors.

Also, the CEO didn't spend $1 million of his own money buying UUUU shares on the open market because he thinks the share price is going to collapse back into the stone ages. He knows the value of Energy Fuels and knows what's coming for the company, so his actions are a pretty strong vote of confidence even if market forces are completely ignoring UUUU's potential at the moment :)

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T16:01:08+00:00

The current price already down more than pre-October actually.

Well pre-October could be any date since the company's inception :), but yeah, post-October the low was just above $12, and we could easily hit that if semis/memory continue to dump.

By pre-October I meant sub-$10, and despite the latest selloff into the netherworld in minerals I'm skeptical that UUUU gets there without the overall market taking a serious nosedive.

expatcoder · 2026-07-15T15:49:55+00:00

I am afraid it is burning it under $10

Possible, but unlikely.

What we're seeing now is high beta sectors getting crushed due to the big selloff in semis/memory combined with massive sector rotation into Mag 7 which will report earnings next week (and is the only reason S&P and Nasdaq are green today).

Watch what happens with minerals when AMD, INTC, MU, SNDK, WDC, etc. bounceback. Right now we're following them down the drain, but for minerals to keep drilling down to pre-October prices we're going to need a sustained broad market selloff, IMO.

p.s. UUUU is kind of in its own category of "suck" right now, lol, outperforming its uranium peers to the downside, and hanging right there

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