Here's a paste of a section from this morning's Scotia Mining daily letter thingy. Take it as you will:
Tradetech Uranium Spot Price +$2!!! Late on Friday, Tradetech reported that the spot price jumped by $2/lb to $43.50/lb, or nearly 5% which is the single largest increase since October 2009. This is quite an amazing move for the uranium market during the normally slow summer months. Tradetech noted that utilities, intermediaries and producers were all active in the market, looking to buy small amounts of inventory to offset any supply interruption owing to issues being experienced at ConverDyn’s conversion facility in Metropolis, Illinois (employees locked out since late June, equipment failures: ConverDyn is the only conversion facility in the U.S. (converts uranium in the form of yellowcake into UF6) and has a capacity of 15mm kg UF6 per year, or ~20% of global supply. A squeeze at the conversion stage can lead to higher uranium prices (i.e. a 3-month shut down at ConverDyn in late 2003 contributed to the 2004-2007 price spike, along with mine production issues at Olympic Dam and flooding at Cigar Lake ). Six month price performance of the uranium stocks has been pretty dismal, with the three companies in Scotia ’s coverage universe down 16-18% (see table below). Cameco (2-SP, C$31/sh target, Lawrence Smith) remains the go-to name for uranium “exposure” and is attractive at 1.14x NAV but Larry notes that Uranium One (UUU-CN, 2-SP, C$3.85/sh target) and Denison Mines (DML-CN, 2-SP, C$1.55/sh target) offer better torque to higher uranium prices with 16.3% and 14.1% sensitivity to a 10% move in uranium prices, vs. 6.7% for Cameco (see table below for valuation multiples and share price performance).
Meanwhile, here's a link to a decent interview piece from Mickey Fulp (one of the rare breed that actually knows what he's talking about re U) giving more bullish case for the metal and a few ideas on decent juniors that are worth trading in the U sector.
h/t biiwii