Why Oklo Stock Popped, Then Dropped Today

Key Points

• Oklo and its subsidiary won a total of three Department of Energy contracts to build pilot small modular nuclear reactors.

• Nano Nuclear and NuScale Power won no contracts.

• But eight other companies not named Oklo also won contracts.

• 10 stocks we like better than Oklo ›

Shares of Oklo (NYSE: OKLO), one of a handful of start-up nuclear power companies aiming to commercialize small modular reactors, jumped more than 6% in early trading Wednesday before reversing course and losing it all. As of 12:35 p.m. ET, Oklo stock is now down 1%.

So why did Oklo pop and then drop?

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Image source: Getty Images.

Good news for Oklo

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) picked Oklo to perform two projects under its new Reactor Pilot Program, and picked Oklo subsidiary Atomic Alchemy to perform a third, the company announced today. All three projects are in furtherance of President Donald Trump's May 2025 executive order to get at least three working small modular reactors (SMRs) up and running by July 4, 2026.

This sounds like pretty great news for Oklo, and we haven't heard (yet) about either of its closest rivals in the SMR space, Nano Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NNE) or NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR), winning similar contracts.

Both of those other nuclear stocks are down today, by the way, and down even more than Oklo.

Less-good news for Oklo

Digging a little deeper into the news, however, and going to DOE's website to learn if any other companies did win contracts, I discovered that a total of 10 separate companies (two of which are Oklo or its subsidiary) did win contracts. Neither of the 10 is Nano Nuclear or NuScale, which is pretty bad news for those companies, I suspect.

But also, eight of them are not Oklo, and that means Oklo's not quite the odds-on favorite to inaugurate the nation's nuclear renaissance, as its initial press release might lead one to believe.

And this, I suspect, is why Oklo stock was unable to hold on to its gains today.

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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends NuScale Power. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.