Merchant power generators held bid while the uranium fuel cycle and SMR developers were sold across the board — Vistra up 3.9%, Energy Fuels off 8.9%.

The nuclear basket bifurcated along its clearest fault line this session: the operating-power chokepoint stayed bid while everything upstream of a running reactor — the fuel cycle and the pre-revenue SMR developers — was sold. Vistra (VST) led, up 3.9% to $166.72, with Talen Energy (TLN) +1.4% to $378.32 and Mirion (MIR) +1.1% to $16.45. Firm, around-the-clock generation is the binding constraint on datacenter load growth, and the merchant owners of existing baseload are the names the market still pays for when risk comes off; they were among the few green marks on the board.

The laggard was Energy Fuels (UUUU), down 8.9% to $10.26, at the head of a uranium fuel-cycle selloff that was broad and indiscriminate: Uranium Energy (UEC) −6.3% to $9.47, Cameco (CCJ) −4.2% to $89.07, NexGen (NXE) −4.7% to $8.99, Centrus (LEU) −4.4% to $147.14 and the Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM) −4.8% to $47.87. The move tracked the same risk-off, scarcity-premium unwind that hit critical minerals generally — no fuel-cycle-specific trigger, just the speculative end of the complex derating as the S&P held nearly flat. Enrichment and conversion is the nuclear vertical's true chokepoint, and it sold with the miners rather than apart from them.

The SMR developers, the other high-beta cohort, fell in sympathy: Oklo (OKLO) −4.5% to $36.82, NuScale (SMR) −4.4% to $7.67 and X-Energy (XE) −6.9% to $14.39, all pre-revenue names whose valuations are the most sensitive to a change in risk appetite. The sharpest single-name move was Curtiss-Wright (CW) −8.0% to $509.10, the reactor-coolant-pump and naval-propulsion supplier giving back a large recent run with no company news to pin it to — a position-unwind read more than a fundamental one. BWX Technologies (BWXT), the one must-run naval and HALEU fuel franchise, held relatively firm at −2.9% to $141.54.

The calendar is dense into year-end and lands on the structural rungs rather than the traders' names. BWXT reports Q3 on November 2 and NANO Nuclear (NNE) gives its fiscal year-end update November 15. The hardest regulatory signal is the Xe-100 construction-permit milestone in X-Energy's NRC review on December 16, and the Westinghouse/US-government definitive agreements expected by year-end would convert the summer term sheet into a funded program — the kind of catalyst that rewards the fuel-cycle and build-out names the tape just discounted. Watch whether the power complex's relative strength holds as the SMR calendar approaches.