Uranium stocks and related exchange traded fund powered on Friday as Japan plans to restart its first nuclear reactor since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
The Global X Uranium ETF (NYSEArca: URA) jumped 11.1% Friday and is now testing its 50-day moving average.
Leading the charge, Denison Mines Corp (NYSE: DNN) surged 22.2%, Uranium Resources (NasdaqGS: URRE) added 22.3%, Fission Uranium Corp increased 10.5% and Cameco Corp (NYSE: CCJ) rose 10.5%.
Cameco makes up 24.2% of URA’s underlying portfolio, Denison Mines is 11.5%, Uranium Resources is 5.5% and Fission Uranium is 3.7%.
Kyushu Electric Power Co. received the final local approval to restart its Sendai nuclear plant in northern Japan, reports Christopher Donville for Bloomberg.
“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” David Sadowski, an analyst at Raymond James Financial Inc., said in a note. “Restarts in Japan will reduce the threat that Japan’s utilities will dump their uranium inventories into the market.”
Meanwhile, the price on U3O8, tradable uranium, was up 4.3% to $39.5 per ound Friday, the largest gain since March 2011. The metal touched a high of $73 in January 2011.
Japanese nuclear power plants were shuttered in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which led to a meltdown on three reactors at Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant.