Is It Time To Look At Uranium Plays Again? (URA)

Uranium exchange-traded funds and shares of companies involved in the uranium sector are buoyant again after the waterfall event in March. Some analysts and forecasters say that now is the time to add uranium to your portfolio. These market experts point to the world's ever growing demand for energy and the many nuclear reactors currently being built: over the next few years, 27 reactors are set to come online in China alone. Three-Mile Island and the Chernobyl disaster did not halt development of the nuclear energy sector. Likewise, there is no reason to believe that the level 7 nuclear accident at Fukushima will have a lasting effect on the industry. President Obama recently said that the disaster in Japan would not take nuclear power off the table. An investor wanting to get into the uranium sector has many choices, from exchange-traded funds to shares of uranium miners. The leading uranium exchange-traded fund, Global X Uranium URA, has lost approximately 25% of its value since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. URA hit its 52-week low a few days after the tragedy and has been fairly flat since. Market Vectors Uranium+Nuclear Energy NLR is another exchange-traded fund that invests at least 80% of total assets in equity securities of U.S. and foreign companies that derive at least 50% of their total revenues from the nuclear energy business. NLR did not hit a 52-week low after the Japanese tragedy but is still off approximately 10%. For an investor wanting to look at companies, the bellwether and nuclear industry leader is Cameco CCJ. It is the world's biggest publicly-traded uranium miner and many analysts believe it is undervalued at current prices. Other companies to check out are BHP Billiton BHP, Rio Tinto RIO, and Uranium Energy UEC.