Nuclear power startup Oklo (NYSE: OKLO) has shed roughly 15% of its value in just two trading sessions, leaving its market capitalization barely above the cash sitting on its own balance sheet.

At approximately $20 per share Thursday, Oklo’s market value stands at roughly $3.8 billion, while the company held $3.0 billion in cash and marketable securities as of June 30.

That narrow gap means investors are placing almost no value on the actual business, only on the money Oklo has raised by repeatedly selling its own shares.

The selloff began Nov. 4, when a projected Democratic sweep of Congress sent investors fleeing from AI power stocks, clipping 6% from Oklo’s price in a single session.

Thursday’s additional 10% decline pushed the stock to yet another 52-week low, with the company offering no news or disclosure to account for the move.

The timing is particularly awkward because Oklo reports its third quarter before Friday’s open, and the figures that matter most have little to do with revenue.

Analysts expect just $3.04 million in total revenue for all of 2026, making cash burn and capital expenditure the only metrics with real diagnostic value.

In August, management raised its 2026 spending guidance to between $120 million and $150 million in operating cash use and between $400 million and $500 million in capital expenditures.

With $126.9 million in capex recorded through the first half of the year, Oklo must deploy at least $137 million per quarter in the second half to stay on pace.

A shortfall in that number would signal construction delays at Aurora-INL, the company’s first power plant under development in Idaho, while a guidance increase would imply the project is running over budget.

The cost question is already sensitive: Piper Sandler raised its construction cost estimate to $7,000 per kilowatt from $4,000 per kilowatt in October, and management has yet to publicly disclose what Aurora-INL will actually cost to build.

Fuller cost guidance is not expected until a capital markets day scheduled for spring 2027, leaving investors to evaluate a project with no price tag attached.

Analysts project Oklo will burn through $6.3 billion in free cash flow between 2026 and 2030, with 63% of that concentrated in 2029 and 2030, meaning the current cash covers operations only through 2028.

The company’s track record of stock sales tells a story of accelerating dilution at falling prices: shares sold averaged roughly $97 apiece in the first quarter of 2026, around $64 in the second, and approximately $44 in the third.

That third-quarter figure, roughly $320 million raised from about 7.3 million shares through Sept. 10, represents a price more than double where the stock trades today.

A new $1.0 billion stock sale program launched the very next day, Sept. 11, and Friday’s share count will reveal how aggressively Oklo has been drawing on it at current depressed prices.

Wedbush assumed coverage on Nov. 2 with an Outperform rating and a $36 price target, itself a sharp reduction from the firm’s prior $110 target, yet still roughly 80% above where the stock currently sits.

For a sense of what Oklo still lacks operationally, GE Vernova (NYSE: GEV) reported on Oct. 28 with $29.3 billion in new orders, 11 gigawatts of signed gas equipment contracts, and $5.4 billion in free cash flow, all while buying back $1.6 billion of its own shares rather than issuing new ones.

Oklo’s most tangible customer commitment remains a January deal with Meta, which allows Meta to prepay for electricity from a planned 1.2-gigawatt campus in Pike County, Ohio, with those funds directed toward fuel procurement rather than construction.

The company has not disclosed how much Meta has paid under that agreement, and any Friday indication that customers might share the construction burden would meaningfully ease pressure on the share count.

NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR), which held $1.9 billion in cash and investments at the end of June, reports Thursday evening and faces its own version of the same question, with partner ENTRA1 still working toward a binding power agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority.