The Toro Energy Limited (ASX: TOE) share price is sliding lower on Friday.

Shares in the Aussie uranium exploration and production company are down 8.16% to 4.5 cents this morning having surged 19.5% higher on Thursday.

Why the Toro Energy share price is sliding 8% on Friday

Toro Energy is one ASX resources company that may not be on every investor's radar. The Aussie small-cap boasts a market capitalisation of $171 million and largely focuses on uranium deposits in Western Australia.

Shares in the ASX uranium share surged higher yesterday after two key updates. One was a deposit reserve update, the other was Australia's new nuclear-powered submarine deal. That announcement from US President Joe Biden came as part of the AUKUS trilateral security agreement.

The Toro Energy share price closed 19.5% higher on Thursday afternoon following the updates. Toro's Lake Maitland Uranium Deposit Study update noted the vanadium resource is "currently being integrated into the uranium resource block model ready for optimisation".

The big news pushing ASX uranium shares higher on Thursday, however, was arguably the AUKUS deal. Shares in Aussie uranium companies jumped higher following the 7am AEST announcement of the historic agreement.

The Toro Energy share price was no exception, leaping 23.8% higher at the market open as investors looked to speculate on uranium shares. That's despite no indication of individual companies being involved in any submarine-building deals.

However, Friday morning has seen the ASX uranium share fall in a hangover of sorts from yesterday. There have been no new announcements from the company but that hasn't stopped Toro Energy shares from correcting more than 8% to end the week.

However, Toro shares are still up 125% so far this year, and 350% over the past 12 months.

The post Toro Energy (ASX:TOE) share price slides 8% following yesterday's surge appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

The Toro Energy Limited (ASX: TOE) share price is shooting higher this morning after a couple of key updates impacting the ASX uranium development and exploration company.

The Western Australia-focused group's shares have surged 23.8% to 5.2 cents on Thursday morning.

We take a closer look at what could be driving today's moves.

Why the Toro Energy share price is rocketing today

Investors might be wondering why this ASX small-cap share is climbing higher in early trade. There are a couple of factors at play. One is company-specific and the other is more of a macro consideration.

Toro this morning provided an update on its Lake Maitland Uranium Deposit study. The first phase of the re-engineering study at its key deposit has progressed.

Toro said the vanadium resource is currently "being integrated into the uranium resource block model ready for optimisation".

Toro said the re-engineering "follows on from the success of research into beneficiation of the potential Lake Maitland uranium ore and the subsequent redesign of the processing flowsheet for a stand-alone Lake Maitland mining and processing operation".

Investors might be thinking this seems like good news, but may not be enough to spark a 23.8% Toro Energy share price surge. That's because the other factor, affecting ASX uranium shares more broadly, could be at play.

US President Joe Biden joined Australian and UK Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson this morning. The trio announced a new, trilateral security partnership between their nations called "AUKUS".

The deal will see Australia acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in the future. That represents a pivot away from the existing $90 billion deal with Naval Group to build an Australian submarine fleet.

This morning's update has helped boost ASX uranium shares across the board as investors speculate on the news. There have been no indications of individual companies' involvement at this stage.

The Toro Energy share price has rocketed 23.8% on the back of the twin updates. It is up 155% this year to date, and 410% over the past 12 months.

The company currently boasts a market capitalisation approaching $200 million.

The post The Toro Energy (ASX:TOE) share price is surging 23%. Here's why appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Three shares that are climbing more than most at the small end of the market are listed below. Here's why they are on the rise on Tuesday:

The AVZ Minerals Ltd (ASX: AVZ) share price is up over 12% to 9.2 cents following the release of its latest drilling results. The lithium-focused mineral exploration company advised that extensional drilling at the Roche Dure pegmatite in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has identified additional high-grade lithium and tin mineralisation which will be included in the company's revised mineral resource calculation. In addition to these positive drilling results, news that the company's managing director picked up one million of the company's shares through a recent on-market trade appears to have given investor sentiment a boost.

The Kidman Resources Ltd (ASX: KDR) share price has continued its positive run and is up a further 3.5% to $1.34. As well as benefiting from improved investor sentiment in the lithium industry, this lithium miner's shares have been on a strong run thanks to news that it has signed an offtake agreement with Japan's Mitsui. Management advised that agreed volumes to be supplied by Kidman will gradually increase and equate to less than 15% of Kidman's share of nameplate production from the refinery of 22.6kt per annum. Pricing is not fixed and will be based on the price that Mitsui achieves from its customers and prevailing international prices.

The Toro Energy Limited (ASX: TOE) share price is over 6% higher at 3.4 cents. This morning the gold miner advised that it has initiated field preparations for its upcoming first phase gold exploration drilling at its wholly-owned Yandal Gold Project in Western Australia. The drilling will take place in an untested area of the world class Yandal Greenstone Belt. This is just 10km to 30km north east of the multi-million ounce Bronzewing Gold Mine. Drilling is expected to commence in the coming days and run until the Christmas period.

The post Why these small cap ASX shares are on the rise on Tuesday appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

But a number of stocks are on the nose with investors today. Here we take a look at the plummeting share prices of four stocks…

Stavely Minerals Ltd (ASX: SVY) has crashed down 32% to 32 cents. The management team at resources explorer Stavely were formerly Integra Mining execs – before the company was acquired by gold miner Silver Lake Resources Ltd (ASX: SLR). Late last month, Stavely announced what appeared to be positive results from its drilling program at the Stavely Porphyry copper project in Victoria. Evidently, some investors, having digested the report were less than impressed, and sold up.

Thundelarra Ltd (ASX: THX) shares have lost 28% to 15.5 cents. Another junior resources company, Thundelarra is exploring for copper, gold and uranium in Australia. Yesterday the company released some drilling results from its Red Bore project in Western Australia. Clearly investors found nothing to like about the results and like Stavely above, sold down shares in the company.

Toro Energy Limited (ASX: TOE) shares have dropped more than 19% to 10.5 cents. Earlier today, Rum Jungle Resources Ltd (ASX: RUM) announced that it had earned 51% of potash rights in a number of exploration tenements owned by Toro Energy. Seems Toro may have missed out, although Rum Jungle shares were also lower.

Prana Biotechnology Limited (ASX: PBT) has seen its shares fall 12.1% to trade at 25.5 cents. Shares in the small biotech stock spiked on Friday September 5, after the company announced it had received 'orphan drug designation' from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for its PBT2 drug, which is used to treat Huntington disease. Investors may feel that the news wasn't as good as initially thought. Prana shares have lost more than 66% of their value since the beginning of this year.

Investing in speculative small cap stocks like most of these means a wild ride for investors – with no guarantee of a high return in comparison to the high risks.

The post 4 stocks getting crushed by the market today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Here's our view of four companies thrashing the market today…

Panorama Synergy Limited (ASX: PSY) is a technology development company focused on MEMS machines. These machines can measure and detect things too small to be measure any other way, from rain on your windshield, to the presence of certain types of cancer from your breath, plus thousands of other applications. Today the company announced a significant breakthrough in MEMS sensors and the lodgement of two patent applications in Australia and the US. Shares in Panorama shot up more than 54% to 42.5 cents.

Macquarie Telecom Group Ltd (ASX: MAQ) shares soared 17% to $5.90, despite no announcements. The company provides data centre services and business telecommunications, including hosting and cloud services, as well as voice, data and mobile telecommunications. Two of Macquarie's directors recently waded into the market to buy shares – perhaps indicating that they think shares are cheap.

Empired Ltd (ASX: EPD) shares have risen 8.2% to 79.5 cents and are up 43% in the last 3 months. The IT services company recently recorded a 144% increase in net profit to $4.3 million for the 2014 financial year and expects strong growth this financial year. That's thanks to full year contributions from two recent acquisitions and a Major resources project won during the last financial year.

Toro Energy Limited (ASX: TOE), a uranium miner, announced today that its managing director had joined the Prime Minister's trade delegation visit to India this week. India wants to generate 25% of its energy requirements from nuclear power in future, and Australia has nearly one-third of the world's known economic uranium resources. Toro says Australia needs to develop new uranium mines to support growing energy demand. Toro shares have jumped 9.6%.

The post 4 ASX stocks smashing the market today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

But punters willing to risk it all to make massive returns have a vast array of hopeful resource companies with exposure to uranium prices, including (but not limited to) Deep Yellow Limited (ASX: DYL),  Energy Resources of Australia (ASX: ERA), Toro Energy Limited (ASX: TOE), Rum Jungle Resources Ltd (ASX: RUM), and Summit Resources Ltd (Australia) (ASX: SMM). If the uranium price doubles, these companies (as a group) will see their share prices soar. Indeed, Perth Now reports that: "Uranium industry legend Alan Eggers says mining companies should prepare for a rebound in uranium prices by 2014 when there will be a massive global demand for nuclear power." Sounds like a sure thing! Here I am, worrying about long-term business prospects while the savvy traders are loading up on uranium stocks.

However, the uranium play makes one big assumption: that demand for uranium is growing or remaining constant. Fortunately, that is not necessarily the case. For example, Germany is closing down its nuclear reactors, with giant utility E.On recently reported to be interested in closing down reactors ahead of schedule. There was a catastrophic nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan a few years ago, and that has lead the Japanese to cool some of their enthusiasm for nuclear power.

Will the demise of coal save uranium investors? Dick Warburton made the case (in a 2011 article for the conservative Quadrant magazine) that: "The only current viable alternative to burning fossil fuels is to go nuclear." However he also wrote that: "Energy demand is "pretty inelastic" because people will not choose other goods or services to substitute for energy that keeps them warm or cool, cooks their food and provides transportation."

This could not be further from the truth, of course. Not only is energy demand very elastic (it is constantly changing) the general trend is that demand is dropping as power use becomes more efficient (think insulation) and negative load is added to the grid (think rooftop solar). However, while energy demand peaks are reducing, there is significant seasonal variation, as well as significant variation within each day. In no way is electricity demand inelastic – although nuclear power generation certainly is! Even coal powered plants can power up and down more easily, and they're far better for the environment (CO2 is nowhere near as dangerous as radioactive waste – and uranium mines are far more toxic to workers and nearby towns than coal mines are.)

Is nuclear power driven by good economics?

The graph below depicts the cost of power generated from a variety of power plants that have been recently built or (in the case of the nuclear plant) will be built in the future. As you can see, nuclear is the costly option. It would be far cheaper and more flexible to build renewable energy generation in most markets, as long as there is adequate natural gas back-up capacity (which there often is). I believe nuclear plants will continue to be built (from time to time) because some governments want to maintain nuclear expertise in order to remain capable of producing nuclear weapons. However, it certainly cannot be said that nuclear power is the frontrunner to replace coal.

Foolish takeaway

So how can you make money from speculative uranium stocks? Simple: by selling the shares at a profit if the uranium price goes up. However, except for BHP and Rio, none of the companies mentioned in this article are profitable, and buying shares is a risky gamble. I doubt that current shareholders in those companies intend to hold their shares until they receive a dividend. In fact, most investors in these companies are waiting for a "greater fool" to come along and buy them out for a higher price. Long-term value investors would never invest in such a risky proposition: there are plenty of profitable and less risky resource companies available on the ASX.

The post How uranium stocks could make you rich appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.