All posts tagged: market

Best Pokémon TCG deal: Shop 30th Celebration Elite Trainer Box for under market price

Best Pokémon TCG deal: Shop 30th Celebration Elite Trainer Box for under market price

Published by skeptic

TL;DR: The Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration Elite Trainer Box is on sale for $83.44 at Amazon — provided your invite request is accepted. Credit: The Pokémon Company The Pokémon TCG’s 30th anniversary expansion finally arrived on Sept. 16, and you can now score the Elite Trainer Box for below market price. Amazon has knocked a few more dollars off its already competitive preorder price, although actually buying something still depends on getting through the retailer’s invite system.  As of Sept. 17, the Pokémon TCG 30th Celebration Elite Trainer Box is $83.44 at Amazon. It’s shipped and sold directly by Amazon. Mashable Trend Report This is essentially a second price drop, since its current list price matches its previous sale price after being reduced from $200+ last week, and it is far lower than its current TCGplayer market price of $168.03. There is still no guarantee you’ll actually get one, however. Because this is a high-demand item, Amazon requires potential buyers to submit an invitation request via its “request invite” button rather than checking out normally. If you are …

US Mortgage Rates Brush 7%, Weighing on Buyers, Sellers and Further Straining a Bleak Housing Market

US Mortgage Rates Brush 7%, Weighing on Buyers, Sellers and Further Straining a Bleak Housing Market

Published by Sam Flores

Home shoppers holding out for relief from rising mortgage rates may be in for a long wait. The weekly average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan has been rising for months and this week climbed to just below 7% — its highest level in over 19 months. The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rose to 6.95% from 6.76% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.26%. This is the fourth week in a row that mortgage rates have moved higher. The average rate hasn’t reached this level since Jan. 30, 2025. Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also rose this week. That average rate increased to 6.26% from 6.09% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.41%. Higher mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month to borrowers’ costs, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power. As rates rise, that can also lead prospective home shoppers to delay buying. In late February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage …

How AEM built its next growth engine before the market demanded it

How AEM built its next growth engine before the market demanded it

Published by Sam Flores

That shift also changed how AEM worked with customers. Rather than developing products in isolation, it began collaborating with customers from the earliest stages to understand their challenges and co-design solutions. Winning new customers came with a learning curve. “We had to teach them how to work with us on tailored solutions,” he explained. “Sometimes, we’d challenge their requirements and ask, ‘Are you sure that’s the best approach? At scale, it could make the machines far more complex and costly. Maybe there’s a simpler way to achieve the same objective.’” The same approach underpins AEM’s razor-and-blade model, Mr Kabbani said. Customers invest in the company’s core testing platform – the “razor” – before adding customised test collaterals and instrumentation, or the “blades”, as new chip generations emerge. This allows them to keep using the same platform without replacing entire systems. “We’re not a one-time equipment sale,” he added. “Our platform adapts alongside customers as they move through successive generations of chips. That reinforces the depth of our customer relationships because we’re embedded in their production …

Lucy Bull Joins Hauser & Wirth as Market Ascends

Lucy Bull Joins Hauser & Wirth as Market Ascends

Published by Jenni Sidey

Lucy Bull, one of the most sought-after young painters, has joined Hauser & Wirth, a mega-gallery with 16 spaces spread across three continents. She will continue to be represented by the Los Angeles– and New York–based David Kordansky Gallery, which has shown her since 2021. Bull produces vibrantly colored abstractions that can at times resemble fantastical beings moving through voids. These paintings often involve frottage and automatic techniques—both of which are associated with Surrealist art of the early and mid-20th century—and they are typically produced by Bull over extended periods of time. Related Articles Some of her paintings are monumentally scaled. One produced for the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, which mounted an exhibition of her work in 2024, featured a 39-foot-long painting that extended across multiple floors of the museum. In addition to her art, Bull manages an itinerant project called From the Desk of Lucy Bull that has staged exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York. Bull’s work has gained wider notice because of her ascendant secondary market. In 2024, her auction record …

Private Valuations Reach Polymarket via Nasdaq Private Market

Private Valuations Reach Polymarket via Nasdaq Private Market

Published by skeptic

Polymarket launched event contracts tied to private-company milestones this week, expanding into IPO timing, valuation targets and secondary-market activity for firms including OpenAI, Anthropic and Stripe. The move landed the same week the Securities and Exchange Commission said it would seek public input before clearing prediction-market ETFs for launch, a signal that the agency is taking more time rather than issuing an outright rejection. The private-company contracts run through a new partnership with Nasdaq Private Market, which will supply the data used to resolve each contract. Early markets ask whether companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, Databricks and Kraken will hit specific valuation thresholds by set dates, structured as simple yes-or-no outcomes rather than any claim on equity. Polymarket and Nasdaq Private Market described the product as a way to widen access to price discovery in a corner of finance that has largely been reserved for venture firms, institutions and accredited investors. That expansion comes as Polymarket faces broader scrutiny over its banking relationships and regulatory footing as it pushes into new product lines. SEC Weighs …

News diary 14-20 September: Lucy Letby inquiry report, UK labour market and inflation data, Primetime Emmys

News diary 14-20 September: Lucy Letby inquiry report, UK labour market and inflation data, Primetime Emmys

Published by Sam Flores

Lucy Letby. Picture: Cheshire Constabulary/PA Wire Leading the week Monday (September 14): Plaid Cymru, SNP and Sinn Féin leaders meet in Cardiff; Commons debate on Israel and Palestine following UK sanctions announcement; Oasis announce 2027 summer tour. Tuesday (September 15): Thirlwall Inquiry into Lucy Letby publishes final report; ONS publishes UK labour market data, with earnings expected to determine next year’s triple lock increase; Senior Labour speaker at the Trades Union Congress. Wednesday (September 16): UK inflation data; US Fed interest rate decision; NATS preliminary report on air traffic control outage due. Thursday (September 17): UK interest rate decision; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers speech to European Parliament; London Fashion Week begins. Friday (September 18): NATO Chiefs of Defence meeting; John Healey invited to informal meeting of EU finance ministers. Saturday (September 19): Scottish Labour announces new leader; Liberal Democrats autumn conference begins. Sunday (September 20): Lib Dem Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper delivers autumn conference speech; Local elections in the German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin following AfD win in Sachsen-Anhalt; Legislative elections in …

One of UK’s oldest private schools put on market for £5 million after closure

One of UK’s oldest private schools put on market for £5 million after closure

Published by Sam Flores

A 742-year-old school that educated John Lennon‘s son is up for sale for £5 million after it closed due to financial pressures. The Ruthin School in Denbighshire, north Wales, was founded in 1284 and is made up of 12 buildings, a 30-bed boarding house, a sports field, and more than 24 acres of land. It closed suddenly in July after it had been purchased by Galaxy Global Education in 2023, a Chinese company which also shut a private school in Worcestershire earlier this year. Ruthin, a 201-pupil co-educational boarding school, was one of the oldest independent schools in the UK with annual fees ranging from around £15,800 to £54,800 for full boarding. The school’s origins date back to 1284 (Wiki Commons) It includes the main school building, dining hall, science block, additional classroom accommodation, sports hall, storage facilities, boarding houses, sports pitches and adjoining agricultural land. Surveyor Sanderson Weatherall, which has listed the school, said: “The campus is centred around an impressive Grade II listed main building dating from the 1850s, comprising a series of …

Can the US battery market untangle from China?

Can the US battery market untangle from China?

Published by skeptic

There’s an argument to be made about reducing reliance on any single source of a crucial energy technology. But all this tension raises a broader question for me: How much should countries take advantage of cheap, available tech, versus cutting off major sources to force development of their own factories even if that comes at a higher cost? This is hardly America’s first push to move away from Chinese influence in the battery supply chain. One of the major policy tools used in recent years is restricting the tax credits designed to incentivize use of the new technologies. Limiting the types of projects that are eligible can help reduce the cost of local technologies so they’re more competitive with otherwise cheaper imported options. Back in 2022, the US government designed the tax credits that were part of the Inflation Reduction Act to restrict where a battery’s minerals could be mined, processed, or recycled, as well as where a battery and its components were assembled. Those tax credits underwent a makeover in 2025, but the Trump …

Senator claims Trump may open US market to Chinese EVs in Xi deal

Senator claims Trump may open US market to Chinese EVs in Xi deal

Published by skeptic

Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) says she’s hearing rumors that President Trump is preparing to let Chinese cars be sold in the US as part of a broader deal with China. She raised the claim Wednesday, tying it to Trump’s upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington, which she said is coming “in just a few weeks.” There are many reasons to doubt these rumors. “We hear rumors that Trump is planning to allow Chinese cars to be sold in the U.S., as part of a larger deal he’s putting together,” Slotkin wrote on X. She called it “a strategic mistake” that would “irrevocably impact” the 1.2 million Michigan jobs tied to the auto industry, along with US manufacturing capacity more broadly. Slotkin didn’t cite a source for the rumor, and the White House hasn’t announced any plan to roll back auto trade barriers with China. Advertisement – scroll for more content Slotkin is using it to push her Chinese car ban The senator paired the warning with a pitch for her own legislation. …