For the third consecutive week, uranium buyers backed off as sellers hoped to unload some of their speculative purchases.

Friday’s issue of Nuclear Market Review (NMR) posted a US$4 drop in the spot uranium price to US$129/pound. NMR editor Treva Klingbiel reported, “The spot uranium price remains under downward pressure.”

Active uranium supply rose again as buyers were reluctant to buy through this past week’s auction. For the time being, the bloom has come off the spot market’s rose. Klingbiel pointed out, “Two new sellers made discreet inquiries in an effort to sell material this week.”

In discussions with fuel managers and brokers, NMR wrote that only a limited number of buyers indicated interest in purchasing material. And only one small transaction took place in the vicinity of the currently published spot price.

But, the long-term uranium price remains firm at US$95/pound. The $43 gulf between the spot and long-term uranium price has now closed by more than 20 percent from its peak.

Klingbiel explained in this week’s issue, “The underlying fundamentals in the long-term uranium market remain unchanged.” She wrote that global demand between 2008 and 2013 stood at 1.1 billion pounds U3O8 equivalent, while planned production could fall short by 200 million pounds. “That must be filled from inventory or other secondary supply,” she cautioned, “or correspondingly higher shortfalls to the extent that planned production does not materialize.”

Although a three-week hiccup in the spot uranium price, representing a 6.5 percent drop, might have startled some of the uranium bulls, ‘old-timers’ can point to the 20-month consecutive drip-drip-drip decline between May 1999 and December 2000. This 35 percent plunge in uranium pricing came at the tail end of the 20-plus-year depression in the nuclear fuel market, after years of steadily declining prices. The uranium price peaked in May – July 1978 at the then-historical record of US$43.40/pound.

Just as we witnessed a ‘disconnect’ between the spot and long-term uranium price, another event has materialized in the uranium bull market: The Shrug.

Investors seem to have shrugged off the spot price hiccup and the three-month consolidation in uranium mining stocks. For the most part, investors shrugged off Cigar Lake – at least for now.

From the activity we’ve followed among newsletters and chat boards, many long-term bulls have concluded the recent uranium stock consolidation may offer a renewed buying opportunity.

Matthew Smith of TheInvestar Group reported, “It appears that we may be exiting out of our downtrend for the year.” He wrote in an email to us, “Many stocks have been looking good for awhile, some holding steady on down days, and others holding at their support.”

Smith’s conclusion, “This indicates we may just have finished the bottom for the year.” He added, “We may see the juniors move a little ahead of producers at this point, in terms of percentage moves upward as investors move back into the most beaten up stocks.”

Another newsletter which follows uranium market news and charts stocks wrote, “We have seen the sell off, and now many stocks have found a bottom and are consolidating.” Uranium-stocks.net featured Strathmore Minerals (TSX: STM), which recently announced spinning off its Canadian assets in order to focus on bringing its core U.S. assets into production.

Uranium-stocks.net wrote, “Having fallen over 27 percent, Strathmore Minerals appears to have formed a bottom and found support at around $4.00. It is now consolidating and looking to rise in the next leg up in the uranium bull market.”

This sentiment appears to be the common thread of many others commenting on their favorite uranium mining stocks. The summer slowdown in the financial markets is accompanied by increased uranium drilling activity. It is an oxymoron which will be resolved after drilling results are announced.