Up Over 500% This Year: Why This Stock Remains Wall Street’s Best-Kept Secret

Silent surge defies market logic while traditional analysts miss the rally

The Stealth Performer

While mainstream financial media chases meme stocks and blue-chip dividends, one asset delivers staggering returns without the fanfare. Up over 500% in under nine months, this stock operates in the shadows of Wall Street's spotlight.

Market Blind Spots Exposed

Traditional valuation models fail to capture the disruptive potential driving these gains. Legacy financial institutions cling to outdated metrics while digital-native investors reap the rewards. The disconnect reveals how institutional analysis struggles with paradigm-shifting assets.

The Institutional Lag

Fund managers scramble to justify missing a move that retail investors spotted months ago. Their compliance-heavy frameworks prevent agile positioning in emerging opportunities—yet another case of bureaucracy trumping market intuition.

Sometimes the most profitable trades hide in plain sight, waiting for Wall Street to catch up with what the crypto crowd already knows: yesterday's moonshot is today's institutional FOMO.

Image source: Getty Images.

What Oklo is designing, and why it matters

Oklo is an advanced nuclear company that's developing an Aurora powerhouse, basically a small modular reactor that's expected to generate upward of 75 megawatts of power.

These powerhouses are being engineered to run on a specialized fuel -- high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) -- that allows them to run for a decade or more without refueling. For context, many of today's reactors typically shut down every 1.5 to 2 years for new fuel assemblies.

Global data centers will need about 84 GW of power in three years -- and Oklo could supply some of it

To be sure, Aurora's power generation (75 megawatts) is only a drop in the bucket of power that will be needed in the NEAR future. At present,(GS 0.28%) estimates the global data center market alone consumes about 55 gigawatts (GW) of power, a number that's expected to grow to 84 GW by 2027.

But therein lies Oklo's advantage. Its Aurora powerhouses are small and modular and can be assembled near data center campuses. What's more, they can be strung together to amplify their 24/7 power generation. Since the average hyperscale data center needs 100 MW or more, a network of two or more Auroras could hypothetically meet its needs.

Another interesting fact about Oklo: It aims to recycle fuel. Its planned $1.68 billion Advanced Fuel Center in Tennessee is pitched as the first privately funded U.S. facility to turn nuclear waste into fresh metallic fuel. If it works, it could cut operating costs and help Oklo secure a supply chain of what could be the equivalent of 1.3 trillion barrels of oil in recyclable fuel.

The numbers don't add up (yet)

All of that sounds great. Fantastic, even. But here's the kicker: Right now, Oklo's designs are mostly hypothetical, with no Aurora powerhouse governmentally sanctioned to operate.

To date, the company is still trying to get regulatory approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate its Aurora design. The company applied in 2022, but was rejected for missing information on its application. In July 2025, it completed a "pre-application readiness assessment." It's progress, but it's only Phase 1, and until a license is granted, the company's ideas will remain untested at scale.

That's a problem for Oklo. The company isn't generating revenue and is expected to burn between $65 million and $80 million in cash for 2025.

Policy winds at its back

That said, Oklo isn't up a creek without a paddle. The WHITE House has sent clear signals that it wants to develop and deploy advanced nuclear reactors, and Oklo's stock is in a position to benefit from it. An executive order from President Donald Trump, along with a recent joint initiative between the U.S. and U.K. to speed up safety checks on microreactors, have given Oklo a vote of confidence that could move it steadily through the regulatory process.

Along those lines, Oklo's Aurora design was recently chosen by the Department of Energy to participate in a Reactor Pilot Program. Its powerhouse was one of three projects awarded (another went to its subsidiary, Atomic Alchemy), and it could see its first powerhouse up and running by late 2027.

Indeed, as of Sept. 22, 2025, Oklo broke ground on the construction of its first Aurora in Idaho -- a relief for investors who have wanted to see something materialize.

So, is Oklo a buy?

Oklo trades at about 28 times book value, so it's not cheap (its rival NuScale trades at about 9 times book value). As such, a lot of expectation is already baked into today's price.

Aggressive investors with a long-term perspective may want to open a small position. Others who want to capture this market but don't want to risk it all in one start-up may be better served by a nuclear energy exchange-traded fund (ETF).