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Nuclear commissioning ok hey (Nyse: Oklo) it was one of the stock market’s explosive success stories of 2025 (although I probably shouldn’t use the word “explosive” when talking about a company that makes nuclear reactors). The stock hit an all-time high in October shortly after Oklo began building its first small modular reactor (SMR) facility, the Aurora Powerhouse.
Since then, however, the market has not been kind to the company (or to nuclear initiatives in general). Oklo’s share price has fallen more than 60% since its October highs:
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Is this a sign of more bad news to come? Or at this price, is Oklo a buy now?
Oklo is a nuclear start-up in the pre-commercial phase. This means that the company has not yet begun commercial operations and does not expect to begin until late 2027 or early 2028. Therefore, metrics such as quarterly revenue, profitability and price-to-sales ratio do not reflect Oklo’s long-term outlook. Investors will have to wait at least two years before this data makes sense.
Meanwhile, Oklo’s share price movements are driven by news about the company, its rivals, the nuclear industry in general and how analysts and major investors view the stock. For example, when Cathie Wood’s Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF sold a quarter of its position in Oklo in September, the stock price took an immediate hit. Since then, the fund has bought back more shares than it sold.
In other words, investors buying shares now are bracing themselves for at least two years of volatility and unexpected price swings before they know whether the company’s technology will perform as planned. Buying Oklo now is only for investors who can bear that risk, and even they should only use money they can afford to lose.
One of the biggest obstacles to building and operating a nuclear power plant in the US is the amount of red tape that needs to be managed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must approve the design, construction and operation of this facility before it can ever be licensed for commercial power generation. The whole approval process takes years, even if there is no problem that needs to be solved. Until full approval is granted, any commercial nuclear project is essentially stuck in limbo.
Oklo is in the middle of its regulatory journey. It proposes to design, build and operate its reactors, then sell the power it generates to customers, so it is applying for a combined license from the NRC, which will include design, construction and operational approval. Although it has not yet received such combined approval from the NRC, its Aurora Powerhouse project in Idaho was accepted into the US Department of Energy’s Reactor Pilot Program (RPP) last year. The purpose of the RPP is to accelerate the testing and deployment of advanced nuclear reactors such as Oklo.
