It's hard to ignore any commodity that's seen a more than 1,000% price climb over the course of five years, especially one that's about to be traded on a futures exchange for the first time.
Weekly spot prices for uranium stood at $113 a pound on April 23 -- that's an 11-fold increase from the $10 it cost in 2002, according to data from Ux Consulting Co.
It's no wonder that the uranium industry and potential investors are all abuzz following an agreement between Ux Consulting and the New York Mercantile Exchange, a unit of Nymex Holdings, announced last week to introduce on- and off-exchange traded uranium futures products on May 6.
"The fact is, there's a need for a uranium futures market," said Sean Brodrick, a contributing editor to MoneyandMarkets.com, who has often written about the uranium rally. Read his related Internet blogs."The way things are now, most uranium is sold under long-term contract and some is sold under short-term contract," he said. "But liquidity can just dry up [and] it's hard for utilities to make plans if they don't know what the real price of uranium is."
Weekly spot prices for uranium stood at $113 a pound on April 23 -- that's an 11-fold increase from the $10 it cost in 2002, according to data from Ux Consulting Co.
It's no wonder that the uranium industry and potential investors are all abuzz following an agreement between Ux Consulting and the New York Mercantile Exchange, a unit of Nymex Holdings, announced last week to introduce on- and off-exchange traded uranium futures products on May 6.
"The fact is, there's a need for a uranium futures market," said Sean Brodrick, a contributing editor to MoneyandMarkets.com, who has often written about the uranium rally. Read his related Internet blogs."The way things are now, most uranium is sold under long-term contract and some is sold under short-term contract," he said. "But liquidity can just dry up [and] it's hard for utilities to make plans if they don't know what the real price of uranium is."
