Nuclear stocks slide as Piper Sandler splits the sector with divergent ratings

The nuclear energy trade that looked unstoppable in 2024 and 2025 is now getting a full-blown identity crisis. Piper Sandler analyst Dimple Gosai initiated coverage on several advanced nuclear companies this week, and the verdict was anything but uniform: Oklo got a Buy rating with a $55 price target, while X-Energy landed a Sell with a $9 target. Stocks across the sector responded by heading south. Oklo shares fell roughly 4.5%, X-Energy dropped about 3.9%, and NuScale Power also declined as the broader nuclear cohort absorbed the implications of an analyst publicly picking winners and losers among pre-revenue reactor developers. The Piper Sandler thesis: two companies, opposite trajectories Gosai’s report drew a sharp line between Oklo’s business model and X-Energy’s. Oklo operates a build-own-operate structure, meaning it plans to own the reactors it deploys and sell the power directly. Piper Sandler called this approach “bankable by design,” arguing that vertical integration reduces customer risk and makes it far easier to secure project financing. The $55 price target on Oklo implies roughly 27% upside from its recent trading level near $43. The analyst’s logic rests on the no...