A 318 Percent Surge: The Growth Stock Wall Street Is Quietly Loading Up On

About thirty miles outside of Blanding, in Utah’s Red Rock Desert, is a mill that receives little media attention. Since the White Mesa Mill began processing uranium in the 1980s, most observers of American energy infrastructure have probably forgotten about it. However, it has a feature that no other facility in the US has: it can process monazite ore, which is sand that contains rare earth elements, all the way to separated rare earth oxides. China is the only nation that does this on a significant scale. The domestic solution is White Mesa. Additionally, Wall Street has been purchasing stock in the company that owns it for the past year due to growing awareness.

Uranium for nuclear power and rare earth elements for the magnets in electric motors, wind turbines, and advanced weapons systems are two of the most significant resource stories of the modern industrial era. Energy Fuels Inc., a Colorado-based critical minerals producer, has been quietly building a position at their intersection. Over the past year, the stock has increased by about 418%, surpassing the growth of the S&P 500 by 36%, the non-ferrous mining industry by 130.2%, and the Zacks Basic Materials sector by 62.5%. That’s a remarkable premium for a business with FY2025 revenue of about $66 million, and it represents what investors think Energy Fuels will become rather than what it is now.

Of the two, the uranium story is easier to understand. Large amounts of electricity are needed for AI data centers, and hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta have been supporting small modular reactor projects and signing nuclear power agreements with a seriousness that would have seemed out of the ordinary five years ago.

Energy Fuels runs the Pinyon Plain Mine in Arizona and the La Sal Complex in Utah, which produced over 1.6 million pounds of uranium through 2025, exceeding guidance by about 11%. New nuclear capacity requires uranium. As its cheaper Pinyon Plain ore lowers its average production cost from about $43 per pound to the low $30s while uranium prices hold, the company anticipates mining 2 to 2.5 million pounds in 2026 and projects gross margins of at least 50%. Contract deliveries are anticipated to reach their peak in 2030, which coincides with the anticipated onboarding of new nuclear capacity from several announced projects.

The opportunity exists in part because most investors are unfamiliar with the rare earth story. Approximately 60 to 80 percent of the world’s rare earth production and a much greater portion of its processing capacity are currently under Chinese control. Neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and praseodymium are necessary elements for the permanent magnets found in wind turbines, electric car motors, and some defense systems. Both defense planners and business policymakers are concerned about the revelation that Western supply chains are strategically reliant on one nation. At White Mesa, Energy Fuels produced its first kilogram of high-purity terbium oxide in March 2026. This was reportedly the first production of this kind in the US in more than ten years. This milestone has more long-term strategic importance than immediate revenue significance.

In a February 2026 note, Goldman Sachs highlighted Energy Fuels, claiming the market undervalued the company’s uranium-plus-rare-earth combination. The stock was a leg higher as a result of that note. The acquisition of Australian Strategic Materials, which was announced in early 2026, would create the largest fully integrated rare earth producer outside of China by combining White Mesa’s processing capabilities with that company’s operational Korean Metals Plant, which transforms rare earth oxides into metal alloys. The first half of 2026 is when the deal is anticipated to close. If it does, the combination would provide heavy rare earth elements with a fully integrated “mine-to-oxide” and eventually “mine-to-metal and alloy” capability, which is the kind of supply chain that Western manufacturers have been attempting to create for years.

Reasonable caution resides in the valuation. In contrast to the industry average of 4.5 times, Energy Fuels is trading at a forward price-to-sales multiple of roughly 25 times. With profitability not anticipated until 2027, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is set at a loss of six cents per share, which is less than the loss of 38 cents in 2025. Since making its NYSE debut in December 2013, the company has never declared a profit. It has no debt, $927.5 million in working capital, and a $700 million convertible notes offering that closed in October 2025 at a conversion price of $20.34, indicating that the investors who contributed that money thought $20 was a fair starting point. Since then, the stock has risen significantly above that level.

Observing the UUUU chart and the surrounding story gives the impression that this is a stock with a sincere institutional conviction, but it’s unclear when the fundamental payoff will occur. The ability of the White Mesa Mill to process rare earth elements is genuine and strategically significant. There is a documented uranium production ramp. The defense and industrial sectors are paying more attention to the actual risk associated with the Chinese supply chain. Goldman’s support is genuine. Whether the stock price already represents the most likely version of all those stories or whether there is still runway if execution keeps up the pace the company has been exhibiting is still up in the air. Energy Fuels is a stock that requires a view on several timelines at once, including short-term losses, medium-term contract revenue, and the long-term question of whether the US can actually build a rare earth supply chain that lessens its dependence on Beijing. The stock is currently trading at $19 and change, a significant premium to its industry peers. The market appears to think that the answer is in the affirmative. The Utah desert mill is contributing to the proof.