Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) has had the wind at its back for about a decade. That time period is important to keep in mind as you examine this uranium miner. The stock is currently hovering around the $45 price point, which seems to be a key level for investors when you look back historically. Is Cameco getting set to leap above this price and rise even further?
What does Cameco do?
At its core, Cameco is a supplier to the nuclear power industry. It mines uranium and processes it into the fuel used by nuclear power plants. More recently it has invested alongside Brookfield Asset Management, helping to buy Westinghouse out of bankruptcy. Although Cameco is the minority shareholder in Westinghouse, it still owns 49% of the business. That pushes it into the nuclear power plant services space, as well. (Westinghouse designs and services nuclear power plants.)
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All in, Cameco is a picks-and-shovels play on nuclear power. That’s likely to be interesting to more aggressive investors because of the increasing demand for nuclear power. There are a few reasons to remain positive about the nuclear power sector.
First, nuclear power does not produce carbon dioxide and is, thus, not a source of greenhouse gases. Second, nuclear power is always on, so it can provide the base load power that is needed to support intermittent clean energy options like solar and wind. And, third, new nuclear power plants are on the horizon that appear likely to be safer to operate and less costly to build.
As demand for nuclear power grows around the world, demand for the uranium Cameco mines and processes and the services Westinghouse provides seem likely to grow, too. That’s a good reason to like Cameco as it bounces up against a price level that appears to have been historically important to investors.
CCJ data by YCharts
The caveat with Cameco
All of that said, there’s one simple fact about Cameco that investors can’t afford to ignore. Despite the attractive features of its business and the potential growth nuclear power offers, Cameco is still selling a commodity product. The company’s top and bottom lines will be highly influenced by the price of the commodity it sells, and there’s no way around that. The Westinghouse investment will likely help to soften the swings to some degree, but it won’t change the general trend.
And this is where the past decade comes into play. Over that period, the stock has lived through two distinct price trends. It started out treading water and then it started to move generally higher. But the graph below starts in 2015. What you don’t see on this graph is the impact that the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown had on Cameco.
CCJ data by YCharts
From the date of the disaster to the end of 2015, Cameco’s stock price fell by a massive 70%. That was driven by a huge drop in the price of uranium. The drop in uranium was caused by the world’s shock at the Fukushima meltdown, which actually led some countries to pull back on their investment in nuclear power. This is the big picture risk that Cameco will always face, since meltdowns can change the view of uranium in an instant.
CCJ data by YCharts
To be fair, nuclear power plants are being made so they have more safety controls today and probably won’t entail as big a risk. But there are still a lot of plants based on older designs that are running. Once-shuttered nuclear power plants are also slated to be reopened. So this headline risk won’t be going away anytime soon for Cameco.
Conservative investors should probably look elsewhere for nuclear power exposure. A better option, particularly for income-focused investors, might be to consider utilities with nuclear power plants in their portfolio. That includes regulated utilities like Southern Company, which just recently opened two new reactors, and competitive power providers like Constellation Energy, which has 22 gigawatts of nuclear capacity (multiples of the capacity of its closest peers).
Know what you are buying with Cameco
Is Cameco worth buying below $45 per share? The answer is yes, but only if you believe that demand for uranium is going to grow over the long term and only if you are willing to sit through the inevitable periods in which commodity prices are weak. If you can’t handle either of those caveats, you’ll be better off with a dividend-paying utility that has nuclear power exposure over Cameco, which is basically a picks-and-shovels play on nuclear power.
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Reuben Gregg Brewer has positions in Southern Company. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Brookfield Asset Management and Constellation Energy. The Motley Fool recommends Cameco. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
