From the moment Prometheus stole fire from the gods and presented it to us, humanity has been concerned with how to fuel our need for energy. One contested, yet efficient and effective, energy source is nuclear power. Approximately 13% of the world’s energy needs currently are met by nuclear power plants, with leading users including Finland, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and Ukraine. France gets three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear reactors. Uranium is the fuel used in conventional nuclear reactors, and the Global X Uranium ETF (URA) is the exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks stocks in the uranium industry.
URA seeks to provide results, before fees and expenses, which correspond generally to the price and yield performance of an index designed to measure the broad-based equity market performance of global companies involved in the uranium industry. The non-diversified fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the securities of the underlying index.
Similar to other commodities, the price of uranium can be highly volatile. URA gained 135% in 2013, but that surge stemmed from prices sinking in November and December 2012, before they recovered sharply in February 2013. Since then, URA has followed a generally downward trend, albeit with periodic rises. Like much of the rest of the market, URA has been down in the first few trading days of 2014.
Read more about why you should keep track of nuclear energy and uranium ETF URA at Eagle Daily Investor.
