Uranium stocks are emerging as one of 2026’s strongest energy trades
By Sam Gatlin, Jason Perz
February 20, 2026
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been pounding the table on one of the most important themes unfolding across global markets right now… energy leadership.
From oil services to small-cap E&Ps, the traditional hydrocarbons trade has quietly been one of the best-performing areas of the market in 2026.
In fact, when we look across the entire energy complex year-to-date, Oil Services $OIH sits firmly at the top of the leaderboard, followed by Small-Cap Energy $PSCE.
But just behind those leaders is a part of the market that many investors still aren’t thinking about as an energy play at all: uranium.
And that’s the shift we want to focus on this week.
If the primary trend in energy is higher, and we believe it is, then it’s unlikely that leadership will remain isolated to oil and gas alone.
Historically, sustained bull markets in energy tend to broaden out over time, expanding into adjacent areas of the power generation ecosystem.
In this cycle, that expansion appears to be taking place through nuclear.
From an alternative energy standpoint, uranium is already emerging as one of the strongest performers in 2026, materially outperforming laggards like coal and solar and keeping pace with some of the best-performing traditional energy groups.
And when we move beyond absolute performance and begin looking at the key intermarket relationships driving this space, the evidence becomes even more compelling.
Uranium stocks relative to the Dow Jones Industrial Average have spent more than a decade carving out what now appears to be a textbook multi-year bearish-to-bullish reversal pattern.
That ratio is finally resolving higher, suggesting we're in the early stages of a brand-new secular uptrend in nuclear stock relative to the broader market.
If this breakout is sustained, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect this leadership trend to persist for years, potentially carrying through the remainder of the decade.
Within the space itself, we’re also seeing encouraging signs of improving risk appetite beneath the surface.
The ratio of Junior Uranium Miners $URNJ to their larger-cap counterparts $URNM has quietly been carving out a bullish reversal pattern of its own over the past several months.
As we’ve discussed many times before, rising junior-to-senior ratios typically indicate expanding participation and greater investor willingness to take on risk within a given theme.
Conversely, when these ratios fall, it tends to signal risk aversion and narrowing of leadership.
Right now, URNJ / URNM is pressing up against the upper bound of its recent range. A decisive breakout to new multi-month highs would confirm that capital is rotating down the market-cap spectrum. This development often precedes the next major leg higher in a developing bull market.
Turning to the price itself, the Global X Uranium ETF $URA is beginning to reflect many of these same constructive dynamics.
Since peaking last October, URA has worked off overbought conditions, carving out what looks to be a well-defined accumulation structure.
And with the price now pressing up against the volume-weighted average price anchored to the January highs, buyers look poised to reassert themselves at any time.
We want to buy URA on strength above 54.50, with a target of 62 over the coming 1-3 months. Over longer timeframes, we're looking at a secondary objective of 69.
