Key Points
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Both Cameco and Alphabet reported incredible Q1 2026 results despite the volatile markets this quarter.
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Cameco is the world’s second-largest uranium miner and grew its already impressive profit margin in Q1 2026.
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Alphabet is uniquely positioned on both the hardware and software sides of the AI market and also grew its profit margins in Q1.
- 10 stocks we like better than Cameco ›
Things are getting pretty wild out there. No matter how much of an optimist you might be personally, nobody can deny the world we live in now is a lot more chaotic than it used to be. This year, the United States alone captured the president of Venezuela and started a war with Iran.
I don’t think things are going to cool off anytime soon. And that’s a tough place to be for an investor. The market thrives on stability and predictability, two things the world sorely lacks in 2026.
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Fortunately for investors, we do have options. Some stocks are set to survive and thrive amid today’s chaos and whatever comes in the next few years. Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) are two of the best.
Image source: Getty Images.
Spicy rocks and spicier profits
Saskatchewan’s Cameco is one of the world’s premier uranium miners and is one of the best-positioned stocks to profit from the nuclear renaissance.
And that’s a renaissance I expect will only accelerate as the current tumult in the Persian Gulf has laid bare the fragility of global energy markets.
Around the world, there are 75 nuclear reactors under construction with another 120 planned, and all of them need a single mineral to generate power: uranium.
Cameco is the world’s second-largest uranium miner by production. It was responsible for 14% of the 173 million pounds of uranium produced around the world last year.
It has two world-class assets in Canada, Cigar Lake and McArthur River/Key Lake. They are the world’s highest-grade uranium mine and the world’s largest high-grade uranium mine, respectively.
Combined with the company’s third major mine in Kazakhstan, its Blind River refinery (the world’s largest uranium refinery), Port Hope Conversion Facility, and fuel manufacturing plant, Cameco is present through almost the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
The company also owns 49% of Westinghouse through a joint venture. Westinghouse currently offers the AP1000, the most advanced nuclear reactor on the market today. That means Cameco can also profit from the reactors its fuel is going into.
Speaking of profits, the company recently (May 5) reported its first-quarter 2026 results, and they were nothing short of fantastic. For Q1 2026, the company’s revenue grew 7% over Q1 2025 to $845 million, and its earnings per share surged 88% over the same period.
Cameco’s already stellar 16.9% net profit margin grew to 18.39% and it maintained its solid 0.14 debt-to-equity ratio.
I’m holding Cameco for the long haul, and with growth like that, I think it’s worth your consideration as well.
Let me spell it out for you
Alphabet is Google’s parent company, and I don’t think it needs much more of an introduction than that. I would bet money that you’ve interacted with Google or YouTube (likely both) in the past day.
The company is also the end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI) play by my math.
Since 2023, the company’s Gemini AI program has emerged as one of the most dominant large language models (LLMs) on the market. It has grown from a 7% share of the enterprise LLM market in 2023 to 21% share in 2025 and will likely overtake OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, this year.
Alphabet is also unique in that it’s positioned on both the hardware and software sides of the AI industry. Its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), developed in collaboration with Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), is one of the only real competitors to Nvidia‘s (NASDAQ: NVDA) graphics processing unit (GPU).
On top of that, the company already has a gargantuan revenue stream coming in from Google, YouTube, and the advertisements on both platforms. None of the AI start-ups that have yet to go public have even the faintest hope of outspending Alphabet to build out their data center infrastructure.
Speaking of the company’s gargantuan revenue, Alphabet released its Q1 2026 results on April 29, and they were fantastic.
Q1 2026 saw Alphabet’s revenue climb 22% over Q1 2025 to hit $109.8 billion. Its diluted earnings per share (EPS) grew 82% over the same period, nearly doubling from $2.81 to $5.11.
Alphabet also grew its net profit margin from 32.8% at the end of 2025 to 37.9% at the end of Q1 2026, and it maintains a solid 0.19 debt-to-equity ratio despite the tech industry’s high spending on data center hardware in recent years.
If you want a one-ticker AI play, Alphabet makes a solid case for itself. I’ve invested my own money in it for that reason, and I think it’s worth your consideration as well.
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James Hires has positions in Alphabet and Cameco. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Broadcom, Cameco, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
