Every month, without checking the price first, one investor buys more shares of the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NYSE:NLR). This isn’t because they think they can time the nuclear energy cycle perfectly, and it’s not because they have some edge on uranium spot prices.
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Instead, they do it because the structural case for nuclear power is the strongest thesis they’ve seen for any single theme in years, and dollar-cost averaging into conviction is a better strategy than waiting for the perfect entry point that never arrives.
The April 2025 tariff selloff knocked the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF down to around $64 per share, and investors who were buying monthly through that dip and kept buying on the way back up have been well rewarded. The fund has returned roughly 64% over the past year as of late March 2026, with a YTD gain of 6.58%. This isn’t luck, it’s what happens when a long-term structural thesis starts getting validated by real capital commitments from the largest companies in the world.
What the Fund Actually Holds
The VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF holds 29 positions across the nuclear energy supply chain, with approximately $4.45 billion in assets and an expense ratio of 0.56%.
The top holdings tell the story clearly with the Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ) at 8.87% for uranium mining exposure, Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG | CEG Price Prediction) at 6.20% as the largest nuclear operator in the United States, BWX Technologies (NYSE:BWXT) at 5.54% for nuclear components and services, and NexGen Energy (NYSE:NXE) at 5.42% for next-generation uranium development.
In total, Energy makes up around 54% of the fund, Utilities add 30%, while Industrials combine for another 14%. Rest assured, this isn’t a pure uranium play either, as the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF spans the entire nuclear ecosystem, including miners, operations, technology providers, and utilities, which means the fund participates across multiple stages of the nuclear buildout rather than concentrating all the risk in one segment.
The Thesis That Makes Monthly Buying Easy
McKinsey projects AI-ready data center capacity is growing roughly 33% annually by 2030, and this kind of electricity demand won’t and doesn’t get solved with solar panels and good intentions. Instead, it requires reliable, around-the-clock baseload power that doesn’t depend on weather conditions, and nuclear is one of the few sources that can deliver it at scale.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) all have signed on or are actively pursuing nuclear power purchase agreements specifically for data center power. The DOE announced roughly $2.7 billion in funding for domestic nuclear in early 2026. The current administration has signed four executive orders supporting the expansion of nuclear energy.
Sprott projects a uranium supply deficit of 200 million pounds by 2040, a structural imbalance that doesn’t resolve quickly, regardless of short-term environments. When the policy environment, the corporate capital commitments, and the supply-demand math all point in the same direction at the same time, the right move is usually to buy consistently and let the thesis play out.
Why Monthly and Not All At Once
Rest assured that the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF isn’t a completely smooth ride as the 52-week range runs from $64.26 to $168.12, a spread that reflects both the opportunity and the volatility inherent in a thematic fund tied to commodity cycles, regulatory timelines, and energy policy. Trying to time entries in a range that wide is a reliable way to either miss the move or panic out at the bottom.
Monthly purchases remove the decision entirely, and when the VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF was at $64 in April 2025, the monthly buyer bought in. When it ran toward $168, the monthly buyer bought less in share terms but stayed in. The discipline of the schedule is what produces the outcome, not the cleverness of any individual entry.
The fund does pay an annual dividend of $3.17 per share, a modest 2.39% yield that isn’t the reason to own it. The reason to own it is that the world is making a decade-long bet on nuclear power, the companies doing the building are inside this fund, and the demand driving that bet, the AI infrastructure, shows no signs of slowing down.
This is a thesis worth buying every month, and for one investor, nothing has changed their conviction as of yet.
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