What Is Fueling SMR Stock's Surge Today?

BofA upgraded NuScale Power to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’, but also trimmed the price target to $28 from $34.

• The firm stated that the derisked LWR design and the Tennessee Valley Authority’s licensing agreement bolster NuScale’s credibility.
• The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved NuScale’s uprated reactor design in May 2025.
• NuScale’s uprated power module was the second small modular reactor design to have been approved by the NRC.

Shares of NuScale Power Corp. (SMR) surged more than 12% in Friday’s pre-market trade. Analysts at BofA upgraded the stock following a correction of nearly 9% over the past month.

According to TheFly, BofA upgraded NuScale Power to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’, but also trimmed the price target to $28 from $34. The firm’s new price target implies an upside of 42% from the SMR stock’s closing price on Thursday.

What Is BofA Saying?

In its latest note, BofA stated that it now views NuScale’s deployments closer to its base case. The firm also noted that the derisked Light-Water Reactor (LWR) design and the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) licensing agreement bolster NuScale’s credibility.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved NuScale’s uprated reactor design in May 2025, after the company revised the power module’s capacity upward to 77 megawatt-electric (MWe), from 50-MWe.

NuScale’s uprated power module was the second small modular reactor (SMR) design to have been approved by the NRC.

The TVA entered into an agreement with ENTRA1 Energy in September 2025 to deploy nuclear power capacity of up to six gigawatts using NuScale’s SMR technology.

However, the firm added that the limited contract visibility caps the upside for the SMR stock in the near term.

Here’s What Stocktwits Users Think

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits around NuScale Power trended in the ‘extremely bullish’ territory. SMR stock was among the top three trending tickers on the platform at the time of writing.

A bullish user stated that NuScale’s viability as a business could be proved amid anticipation of a “couple of major contracts.” The user also pointed to the government's efforts to streamline permits for nuclear power plants as a catalyst for the SMR stock.

Another Stocktwits user stated that if AI adoption continues to accelerate this year, energy providers offering next-generation solutions could remain in the re-rating phase for a long time.

SMR stock is up 39% year-to-date, but flat over the past 12 months.

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