Some of the highlights include

CEO Jerry Grandey shared the following quote:

The long-term fundamentals of the nuclear industry are positive. Cameco is prudently investing today in production growth and new technology to pursue our vision to be a dominant nuclear energy company.

A week later Cameco shares are trading relatively flat ($24.61 pre-announcement to $24.65 one week prior).

Exactly three weeks ago we shared our thoughts on

a street wise gold report update from Seeking Alpha. The report foucessed on a recommendation of Paladin Energy (PALAF.PK). On April 3rd shares closed at $2.68. Today shares finished up trading at $3.14, which is a 17% increase in share value over the past three weeks.

What has brought on this increase? Its tough to pinpoint any one thing but I do see a sharp increase in volume. Average trading volume over this stretch has been right near 200,000 shares per day. The average volume from the week before this stretch (March 28th – April 3rd) was only 58,500. I would image some larger institutional investors have begun to reestablish positions in Paladin. We’ll keep our eyes on PALAF.PK share price and daily volume over the coming weeks.

In Spot Price Examination Part 1 we looked at the overall sales of uranium u308 on the NYMEX futures market. This market is where the industry spot price is set.

But as we brushed over in part 1, questions arise to whether the spot price is actually meaningful when entering into private contracts.

In the article we learned only 540,250 pounds of Uranium were sold on the NYMEX futures market in our random example month of April 2007.

Inside of Cameco’s 2007 year end report comes this graphic;

Cameco is certainly a huge player. There 20 million estimated pounds of u308 production in 2008 is more than three times the estimated amount of u308 sold in futures contracts per year.

According to Cameco they close to half of their long-term fixed contracts included provisions for prices to be set near the spot price, with the remaining locked in at prices that are only increased by inflation adjustments.

Conclusion

While the overall spot market’s volume is a fraction of the overall uranium market, the spot price can affect a companies earnings based upon the style of fixed contract that is entered upon by consumers.

In a small survey Ticker Spy has awarded Cameco as the #1 held uranium stock by Institutions.

Three weeks ago on September 16th an article came out proclaiming Cameco as the favorite uranium stock on the street with institutional investors. This was a small survey. Cameco was named the fav by virtue of 15 institutions liking the stock. Here is the list:

For interests sake the share price for CCJ on Sept 16th closed at $24.12. Today (Oct 2nd) the stock closed at $19.63.

According to Yahoo Finance Key Statistics Cameco’s percentage of shares held by institutions is 73.5%. The short ratio is 1.7, with 6.4 million shares of the 342.69 million shares currently being shorted.

Hat Tip to Ticker Spy and Yahoo Finance Indie Research

Shares of uranium powerhouse Cameco reached a 30+ month low in inter-day trading. We look at the short and long term trader sentiment for the stock.

With spot prices settling in around $64.50, Cameco has continued to fall in the current broad commodity market decline and inter-day the stock reached a 30+ month low, sitting just above $24 a share at $24.02. Shares have not been this low since November of 2006, on an adjusted basis.

Cameco Five Year Chart

(via Yahoo Finance)

Increased volume has to get current share holders concerned. Indicators point to the shares being oversold but this has also been the case over the past few months.

Options traders are mixed on the short term hopes of the stock, as October contract open interest for Puts and Calls are hovering right around a 1.00 ratio. For longer term interest in the Jan 2010, call open interest outnumbers that of puts, with 26244 lots of open interest on the call side vs 8834 interest in puts, for a ratio near 3 at 2.97.

Is this the bottom for Cameco in the near term future or just a continuation of the pain that this stock and the whole uranium sector as a whole has been suffering through in during 2008?

In the short term traders are mixed at best on Cameco’s fortunes, with many traders inclined to take a further out approach.

Is the uranium spot price beginning to establish a short term support level at the $60 level? We check out some of the recent short term data to see if we can spot a trend forming.

Via Infomine.com is a one year uranium spot price chart. As we all know, this is far from pretty if you’re a bull of the commodity.

One Year Uraniumn Spot Price Chart

Focusing in on the latter portion of the chart we can begin to see a smoothing out of the spot price around the $60 level.

Here’s a three month chart.

Three Month Uraniumn Spot Price Chart

Now of course we’ve seen this smoothing effect before in the past year, most recently at the $90 level in from mid december to mid january.

For at least the short term the next two spot price updates will be important. Are we beginning to establish a short term support level around $60? Or is this just a slight stop of the continuing downward trend of the global uranium spot price market?

A quick look at Altius’ recent three month chart may point signs to a short term resistance level.

As you can see from the following chart Altius has recently tested around the $12 – $12.25 level four times over the past three months, including currently. Each time the stock has established support and bounced off of this level. After banging its head on the $14.25 level twice in at the beginning and middle portions of April, ALS.TO managed to head up to the $16 level in mid-may before dropping back down to its current $12.50 level.

With the spot steadying in around the $60 level over May we may hopefully be witnessing a bottom in the market. Only time will tell…

Can United Uranium Corp string together any good news? The company sent out a press release on April 30th outlining their drilling plans. The company is still have regulatory issues with the province of Saskatchewan over the ownership dispute of 25 claims in the Fort à la Corne area that were ruled in favor of Star Uranium Corp. and United Uranium Corp way back in 2003. The stock was a small time play back a year ago when uranium stock’s were all the rage on ROB/BNN TV and with western analysts. Here is a one year stock chart.

Whether anything more than pennies can be recaptured from this play remain to be seen. Here are the straight Press Release Highlights

Six overburden holes were drilled in the Peace River kimberlite project during the month of March. Depths varied from 25.9 metres to a maximum of 76.2 meters and all holes penetrated bedrock. The basal till was identified in all holes and samples taken. The cuttings will be analysed for kimberlite indicator minerals which will be used in conjunction with existing sampling and geophysics to locate any kimberlite pipes on the property.

The initial winter exploration plans included diamond drilling of the 3600 hectare South Bear uranium property located on the eastern edge of the Athabasca Basin. Because of scheduling conflicts diamond drilling of the property did not take place and has been rescheduled for this summer.