Delivery drones are so fast they can zip a pint of ice cream to a customer’s driveway before it melts.Yet the long-promised technology has been slow to take off in the United States. More than six years after the Federal Aviation Administration approved commercial home deliveries with drones, the service mostly has been confined to a few suburbs and rural areas.That could soon change. The FAA proposed a new rule last week that would make it easier for companies to fly drones outside of an operator’s line of sight and therefore over longer distances. A handful of companies do that now, but they had to obtain waivers and certification as an air carrier to deliver packages.While the rule is intended to streamline the process, authorized retailers and drone companies that have tested fulfilling orders from the sky say they plan to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households.
Walmart’s multistate expansion
Walmart and Wing, a drone company owned by Google parent Alphabet, currently provide deliveries from 18 Walmart stores in the Dallas area. By next summer, they expect to expand to 100 Walmart stores in Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston; and Orlando and Tampa, Florida.After launching its Prime Air delivery service in College Station, Texas, in late 2022, Amazon received FAA permission last year to operate autonomous drones that fly beyond a pilot’s line of sight. The e-commerce company has since expand its drone delivery program to suburban Phoenix and has plans to offer the service in Dallas, San Antonio, Texas, and Kansas City.The concept of drone delivery has been around for well over a decade. Drone maker Zipline, which works with Walmart in Arkansas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, began making deliveries to hospitals in Rwanda in 2016. Israel-based Flytrex, one of the drone companies DoorDash works with to carry out orders, launched drone delivery to households in Iceland in 2017.But Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said drone delivery has been in “treading water mode” in the U.S. for years, with service providers afraid to scale up because the regulatory framework wasn’t in place.“You want to be at the right moment where there’s an overlap between the customer demand, the partner demand, the technical readiness and the regulatory readiness,” Woodworth said. “I think that we’re reaching that planetary alignment right now.”
Flying ice cream and eggs
DoorDash, which works with both Wing and Flytrex, tested drone drop-offs in rural Virginia and greater Dallas before announcing an expansion into Charlotte. Getting takeout food this way may sound futuristic, but it’s starting to feel normal in suburban Brisbane, Australia, where DoorDash has employed delivery drones for several years, said Harrison Shih, who leads the company’s drone program.“It comes so fast and it’s something flying into your neighborhood, but it really does seem like part of everyday life,” Shih said.Even though delivery drones are still considered novel, the cargo they carry can be pretty mundane. Walmart said the top items from the more than 150,000 drone deliveries the nation’s largest retailer has completed since 2021 include ice cream, eggs and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.Unlike traditional delivery, where one driver may have a truck full of packages, drones generally deliver one small order at a time. Wing’s drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.5 pounds. They can travel up to 12 miles round trip. One pilot can oversee up to 32 drones.Zipline has a drone that can carry up to 4 pounds and fly 120 miles round trip. Some drones, like Amazon’s, can carry heavier packages.Once an order is placed, it’s packaged for flight and attached to a drone at a launch site. The drone automatically finds a route that avoids obstacles. A pilot observes as the aircraft flies to its destinations and lowers its cargo to the ground with retractable cords.
Risks and rewards of commercial drones
Shakiba Enayati, an assistant professor of supply chain and analytics at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, researches ways that drones could speed the delivery of critical health supplies like donated organs and blood samples. The unmanned aircraft offer some advantages as a transport method, such as reduced emissions and improved access to goods for rural residents, Enayati said.But she also sees plenty of obstacles. Right now, it costs around $13.50 per delivery to carry a package by drone versus $2 for a traditional vehicle, Enayati said. Drones need well-trained employees to oversee them and can have a hard time in certain weather.Drones also can have mid-air collisions or tumble from the sky. But people have accepted the risk of road accidents because they know the advantages of driving, Enayati said. She thinks the same thing could happen with drones, especially as improved technology reduces the chance for errors.Woodworth added that U.S. airspace is tightly controlled, and companies need to demonstrate to the FAA that their drones are safe and reliable before they are cleared to fly. Even under the proposed new rules, the FAA would set detailed requirements for drone operators.“That’s why it takes so long to build a business in the space. But I think it leads to everybody fundamentally building higher quality things,” Woodworth said.Others worry that drones may potentially replace human delivery drivers. Shih thinks that’s unlikely. One of DoorDash’s most popular items is 24-packs of water, Shih said, which aren’t realistic for existing drones to ferry.“I believe that drone delivery can be fairly ubiquitous and can cover a lot of things. We just don’t think its probable today that it’ll carry a 40-pound bag of dog food to you,” Shih said.
The view from the ground in Texas
DoorDash said that in the areas where it offers drone deliveries, orders requiring the services of human delivery drivers also increase.That’s been the experience of John Kim, the owner of PurePoke restaurant in Frisco, Texas. Kim signed on to offer drone deliveries through DoorDash last year. He doesn’t know what percentage of his DoorDash customers are choosing the service instead of regular delivery, but his overall DoorDash orders are up 15% this year.Kim said he’s heard no complaints from drone delivery customers.“It’s very stable, maybe even better than some of the drivers that toss it in the back with all the other orders,” Kim said.For some, drones can simply be a nuisance. When the FAA asked for public comments on Amazon’s request to expand deliveries in College Station, numerous residents expressed concern that drones with cameras violated their privacy. Amazon says its drones use cameras and sensors to navigate and avoid obstacles but may record overhead videos of people while completing a delivery.Other residents complained about noise.“It sounds like a giant nagging mosquito,” one respondent wrote. Amazon has since released a quieter drone.But others love the service. Janet Toth of Frisco, Texas, said she saw drone deliveries in Korea years ago and wondered why the U.S. didn’t have them. So she was thrilled when DoorDash began providing drone delivery in her neighborhood.Toth now orders drone delivery a few times a month. Her 9-year-old daughter Julep said friends often come over to watch the drone.“I love to go outside, wave at the drone, say ‘Thank you’ and get the food,” Julep Toth said.
AP Video Journalist Kendria LaFleur contributed from Frisco, Texas.
Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
Why do so many of us struggle to save?Saving for the future can be difficult because of a cognitive bias known as hyperbolic discounting: our tendency to place greater weight on immediate satisfaction, even if focusing on the long term will have a greater payoff. This bias is why, when you get a raise, you may consider getting a new carincurring a higher monthly paymentinstead of sacking away more money each month for retirement and perhaps getting to retire several years earlier.Feeling stressed about finances can also get you off track with your savings. While some people respond to financial stress by saving more, others respond by spending more in order to regain feelings of control.Unfortunately, these shortsighted decisions on spending versus saving can have large effects on our ability to achieve our future goals, because of the enormous power of compound interest. So, let’s talk about what you can do to keep saving when you feel the urge to give up.
1) Perform a goals audit
Sit down and list what you are saving for. If needed, you can use techniques geared toward helping people find and articulate their financial goals.Then, consider how you might pair up your goals to boost your savings motivation. Research suggests the most motivating financial goals may be those relating to security (for example, retirement) or self-actualization (such as opening a business or contributing to charities). Consider how you may link some of your shorter-term goals to these bigger goals.For instance, you may decide to couple your “savings for home repairs” with your desire to “donate to charity” by committing to donate the excess you saved for repairs to your favorite nonprofit. By ensuring your goals are well-articulated and meaningful, you can always come back to them for a dose of motivation when you feel yourself wavering.
2) Assess what you can (and should) save
When we are feeling stressed by finances, we may convince ourselves that all our current spending is more of a priority than our saving. So, start by doing a comprehensive review of your budget.How much money comes in each month, how much goes out, and where does it go? If you don’t find a monthly surplus, that indicates you may need to go through your spending and decide where you can spend less.I recommend giving yourself a reality check by calculating how much you need to save each month to achieve your goal in the time you want to. It’s especially eye-opening to calculate how saving more or less each month can affect your ability to retire.Remember, it’s OK if you cannot save as much in this season of your life as you’d like. But by saving what you can and coming back to this practice when your circumstances change, you can still make serious progress toward your goals.
3) Take it out of your hands
Now, make your commitment as easy as possible by automating the process. If you have to decide every month to transfer money into your IRA or savings, the chances are that it won’t happen at some point. You’ll forget, put it off, or maybe decide that this is the month for a treat instead.Research suggests that automating savings can help people save more than they otherwise would, so taking the time to automate your savings now can help you stick with your plan for monthsor yearsto come.
This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-financeDanielle Labotka, Ph.D., is a behavioral scientist at Morningstar.
Danielle Labotka of Morningstar
Look what you made her do Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”Swift announced the album on her website shortly after a countdown timer expired at 12:12 a.m. Tuesday. No release date was announced, but her site said vinyl editions of the album would ship before Oct. 13.Fans have long theorized that Swift’s 12th album would soon arrive. On Monday, Taylor Nation an official branch of the pop superstar’s marketing team posted a TikTok slide show of 12 images with the caption “Thinking about when she said ‘See you next era'” Swift is seen wearing orange in every image.A special limited vinyl edition of the album will be released in “Portofino orange glitter,” according to a pre-order page on her site. A special cassette edition is also available for pre-order.Sensing a pattern, eagle-eyed fans noticed that 12 minutes earlier, the popular “New Heights” podcast posted a tease for Wednesday. The show, hosted by Swift’s boyfriend and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce alongside his brother, former Eagles center Jason Kelce, posted an orange image on social media with a mysterious silhouette, many believing to be Swift.The podcast announced early early Tuesday that Swift would would appear on “New Heights” and a teaser video posted about her appearance showed her pulling the album from a briefcase. The actual album artwork, just as it is on her website, is blurred.“The Life of a Showgirl” follows last year’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her record-breaking tour, which raked in over $2.2 billion across two years and five continents, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.The album is also her first release since Swift regained control over her entire body of work. In May, that pop star said she purchased her catalog of recordings originally released through Big Machine Records from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount.In recent years, Swift has been rerecording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music. The project was instigated by Hybe America CEO Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalog and represents Swift’s effort to control her own songs and how they’re used. Previous “Taylor’s Version” releases have been more than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new “from the vault” music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work.So far, there have been four rerecorded albums, beginning with “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” in 2021. All four have been massive commercial and cultural successes, each one debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.Swift’s last rerecording, “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” arrived in October 2023, just four months after the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman with the most No. 1 albums in history.
Maria Sherman, AP Music Writer
President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law will result in less income for the poorest Americans while sending money to the richest, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported Monday.The CBO estimates that the 10% of poorest Americans will lose roughly $1,200 a year as they experience restrictions on government programs like Medicaid and food assistance, while the richest 10% of Americans will see their income increase by $13,600 from tax cuts. Overall, American households will see more income from the tax cuts in the legislation, including middle income households, but the largest benefit will go to the top 10% of earners.The CBO’s report comes as lawmakers are away from Washington, many taking their messages about the bill to voters. Republicans muscled the legislation deemed “the big, beautiful bill” by Trump through Congress in July. Democrats all vehemently opposed the legislation, warning that its tax cuts and spending priorities would come at the expense of vital government aid programs and a ballooning national debt.“This really is a big, beautiful bill for billionaires, but for the poor and the working class in this country, you are actually poorer,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, in an MSNBC interview on Monday.Changes to eligibility for government food assistance under the law will impact millions of Americans, the CBO found. Roughly 2.4 million people won’t be eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program under new work requirements for many recipients. Low-income Americans could also see their income reduced through further restrictions on food aid and other types of assistance included in the law.Already, more than 10 million Americans are expected to lose health insurance by 2034 due to changes to Medicaid under the law.Following release of the report, Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he took issue with CBO’s methodology, repeating criticism he has made in the past.“CBO has a troubled track record of getting its estimates incorrect and, like Democrats, is biased in favor of more federal spending and higher taxes,” Smith said on social media. “Don’t buy it.”Republicans have been eager to sell the upsides of the legislation arguing that the tax cuts will spur economic growth while they are on a monthlong summer break from Washington. But those who have held townhalls in their home districts have often been greeted by an earful from voters and activists.“Tax the rich,” the crowd in Lincoln, Neb. chanted last week as Republican Rep. Michael Flood attempted to defend the bill.Still, Trump has been undeterred.“President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is putting America First like never before, delivering huge savings for hardworking families, boosting our economy, and securing our borders,” said White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson in a statement last week.
Stephen Groves, Associated Press
Heads up, Elon?
AST SpaceMobile, a Texas-based startup that designs and manufactures satellites with aims of challenging companies like SpaceX, saw its stock price shoot closer to the moon after it announced second-quarter earnings on Monday.
The catalyst appears to be that the companys plan to deploy as many as five dozen satellites into orbit by next year is actually taking flight, and is fully funded, per AST’s earnings report.
We are confirming our fully-funded plan to deploy 45 to 60 satellites into orbit by 2026 to support continuous service in the US, Europe, Japan, and other strategic markets, including the U.S. Government,” Abel Avellan, founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We also have planned orbital launches every one to two months on average during 2025 and 2026.”
At the same time, the company reported widening losses of $99.4 million for the second quarter of 2025, compared to $72.6 million for the same period last year.
Shares in AST SpaceMobile Inc (Nasdaq: ASTS) were up almost 13% in premarket trading on Tuesday as of this writing.
Half dozen satellites already in orbit
The company currently has six satellites in orbit, Avellan added, so the deployment of dozens more would signify a huge increase in its current presence in space.
Its goal is to create a space-based cellular broadband network to rival SpaceX’s Starlink, which could help connect smartphones and computers to the internet in areas where terrestrial coverage gaps exist.
We are on target to complete 40 satellites equivalent of microns by early 2026 to support full voice, data, and video space-based cellular broadband services, Avellan said.
Starlink is only one of several potential rivals in this space, however. For instance, Apple is currently backing Globalstar, while Amazon has Project Kuiper.
In all, it seems that space is about to get less emptyat least in orbit, where numerous companies are competing for an advantage.
The credit card rewards market has become a high-stakes battleground in 2025, with issuers rolling out new benefits and revamped product lines to attract or retain affluent, travel-focused customers.
In some cases, though, the upgrades come with dramatic fee hikes. In recent weeks, JPMorgan Chase announced a substantial overhaul of its Chase Sapphire Reserve offering, including a fee increase from $550 to $795 per year and the launch of a business version of the card.
American Express has signaled a major refresh of its Platinum Card by years end, including upgrades to its Centurion Lounges and a new Sidecar fast-format lounge concept in Las Vegas.
Citi, meanwhile, has reentered the ultra-premium market with the $595 Strata Elite Card, boasting a $1,500 estimated annual value through hotel, travel, and lifestyle credits.
Against this backdrop, Capital One is taking a markedly different approach: extending new travel benefits to customers of its no-annual-fee rewards cards.
Expanding benefits without raising fees
Starting August 12, new cardholders of Capital Ones VentureOne, Quicksilver, and Savor products will receive a $100 Capital One Travel creditthe first time the bank has offered a travel credit on these no-fee cards.
That comes in addition to existing sign-up bonuses: 20,000 miles for VentureOne or $200 cash back for Quicksilver and Savor after spending $500 in the first three months.
The move is paired with a large expansion of the Capital One Travel platform, which now offers access to more than 500,000 vacation rental properties and 180,000-plus bookable activities and excursions. Those can be reserved directly through Capital One Travel, earning cardholders 5x rewards on bookings. The curated experiences range from wine tours in Napa, California, to private boat charters in the Caribbeansignaling a push toward personalized, experiential travel.
All three cards now also include complimentary Five Star status with the Hertz Gold Plus Rewards program. Perks include access to a wider selection of vehicles, complimentary upgrades when available, and the ability to bypass the rental counter at select locations.
A contrarian strategy in the rewards arms race
While competitors are focusing on the upper end of the marketand justifying triple-digit annual fees with expanded lounge access, premium status perks, and lifestyle creditsCapital Ones latest move targets a broader swath of consumers: those who value travel benefits but arent willing to commit to high annual fees.
By offering benefits traditionally reserved for higher-tier products, the bank can entice casual travelers to book through its proprietary platform, increasing transaction volume and cross-selling opportunities without the friction of an annual fee.
This could be especially relevant as inflation and economic uncertainty make consumers, including those who travel regularly, more cost-conscious. According to a 2024 JD Power report, more than 60% of rewards cardholders cited no annual fee as a top priority when considering a new card, while still ranking travel perks among the most desired benefits.
Competitive implications
Capital Ones timing is notable. Chases Sapphire Reserve fee hike may prompt some cardholders to reevaluate whether theyre fully utilizing their premium benefits. Amexs forthcoming Platinum refresh and Citis Strata Elite launch are both aimed squarely at high-spending travelers, potentially leaving an opening for Capital One to appeal to consumers who are priced out of the premium tier.
By expanding its no-fee travel offerings while maintaining premium-like features, Capital One is betting that it can capture spend from travelers who are increasingly strategic about card benefitsand less inclined to pay $600 to $800 per year for access.
The Perseid meteor shower, known for its plentiful meteors and bright fireballs that blaze across the night sky, will peak tonight, August 12 to 13, 2025. The moon will be bright, but you’ll still be able to see a stunning display in dark areas.
Heres what to know about this skywatching event, and how you can catch the show.
Why the Perseids are popular
The Perseids always make for an impressive show. Skywatchers in dark areas can observe around 50 meteors per hour at the showers peak. This includes both traditional meteors that leave vibrant streaks in their wakes, as well as the occasional bright fireball of color and light.
This isnt necessarily the most active meteor shower (the Geminids and Quadrantids vie for that honor), but because the Perseids occur during warm summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere, they are very popular. The meteor shower is also visible from parts of the Southern Hemisphere, but the view is diminished.
The moon will be bright
Unfortunately, the moon will be in its waning gibbous phase, rising during the late evening, which will hamper views of the Perseid meteor shower. The moons brightness means that to see any significant number of meteors, you should travel to the darkest sky possible. Even at a dark sky site, you will likely see fewer than the 50 meteors per hour estimated at the showers peak.
When is the best time to see the meteor shower?
The radiant, or the point in the sky from which the shower appears to originate, is the Perseus constellation, which will be low in Northern Hemisphere skies in the evening.
That means that the ideal time to see the shower is in the predawn hours, between 3 and 5 a.m. local time, when Perseus has risen higher in the night sky.
Where does the Perseid meteor shower come from?
While the Perseids are named after their radiant, they dont actually come from the Perseus constellation. Instead, they are the product of the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which has an orbital period of 133 years.
When comets travel through our solar system around the sun, they leave a trail of dust and debris in their wake. When Earth travels through these trails, that is what produces meteor showers, which is why they are relatively reliable nighttime events every year.
This year, Earth travels through 109P/Swift-Tuttles trail from July 17 through August 24. The peak, though, is when Earth travels through the core of that trail, which produces the most brilliant and concentrated meteor showers of the entire event. With a keen eye, it is possible to continue to see the occasional Perseid meteor in the night sky through the end of August.
Ford is recalling more than 103,000 F-150 pickup trucks in the U.S. over axle bolts that may break and result in vehicle rollaways or a loss of drive power, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Tuesday.
A broken axle bolt can damage axle hub splines components that transfer power from the axle to the wheels and help them rotate.
Damaged splines can cause vehicles to roll away when in park without the parking brake engaged or result in a loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash, the U.S. auto safety authority said.
The report said that if the rear axle bolt becomes loose, customers may report a clicking noise. If the bolt breaks, they may hear a rattling noise.
As a remedy, dealers will replace the rear axle shaft assemblies, free of charge.
The recall affects Ford’s F-150 models between 2023 and 2025. NHTSA estimates about 1% of the vehicles have the defect.
Harshita Meenaktshi and Aishwarya Jain, Reuters
President Donald Trump extended a trade truce with China for another 90 days Monday, at least delaying once again a dangerous showdown between the world’s two biggest economies.Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he signed the executive order for the extension, and that “all other elements of the Agreement will remain the same.” Beijing at the same time also announced the extension of the tariff pause, according to the Ministry of Commerce.The previous deadline was set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Had that happened the U.S. could have ratcheted up taxes on Chinese imports from an already high 30%, and Beijing could have responded by raising retaliatory levies on U.S. exports to China.The pause buys time for the two countries to work out some of their differences, perhaps clearing the way for a summit later this year between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and it has been welcomed by the U.S. companies doing business with China.Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said the extension is “critical” to give the two governments time to negotiate a trade agreement that U.S. businesses hope would improve their market access in China and provide the certainty needed for companies to make medium- and long-term plans.“Securing an agreement on fentanyl that leads to a reduction in U.S. tariffs and a rollback of China’s retaliatory measures is acutely needed to restart U.S. agriculture and energy exports,” Stein said.China said Tuesday it would extend relief to American companies who were placed on an export control list and an unreliable entities list. After Trump initially announced tariffs in April, China restricted exports of dual-use goods to some American companies, while banning others from trading or investing in China. The Ministry of Commerce said it would stop those restrictions for some companies, while giving others another 90-day extension.Reaching a pact with China remains unfinished business for Trump, who has already upended the global trading system by slapping double-digit taxestariffson almost every country on earth.The European Union, Japan, and other trading partners agreed to lopsided trade deals with Trump, accepting once unthinkably U.S. high tariffs (15% on Japanese and EU imports, for instance) to ward off something worse.Trump’s trade policies have turned the United States from one of the most open economies in the world into a protectionist fortress. The average U.S. tariff has gone from around 2.5% at the start of the year to 18.6%, the highest since 1933, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University.But China tested the limits of a U.S. trade policy built around using tariffs as a cudgel to beat concessions out of trading partners. Beijing had a cudgel of its own: cutting off or slowing access to its rare earths minerals and magnetsused in everything from electric vehicles to jet engines.In June, the two countries reached an agreement to ease tensions. The United States said it would pull back export restrictions on computer chip technology and ethane, a feedstock in petrochemical production. And China agreed to make it easier for U.S. firms to get access to rare earths.“The U.S. has realized it does not have the upper hand,” said Claire Reade, senior counsel at Arnold & Porter and former assistant U.S. trade representative for China affairs.In May, the U.S. and China had averted an economic catastrophe by reducing massive tariffs they’d slapped on each other’s products, which had reached as high as 145% against China and 125% against the U.S.Those triple-digit tariffs threatened to effectively end trade between the United States and China and caused a frightening sell-off in financial markets. In a May meeting in Geneva they agreed to back off and keep talking: America’s tariffs went back down to a still-high 30% and China’s to 10%.Having demonstrated their ability to hurt each other, they’ve been talking ever since.“By overestimating the ability of steep tariffs to induce economic concessions from China, the Trump administration has not only underscored the limits of unilateral U.S. leverage, but also given Beijing grounds for believing that it can indefinitely enjoy the upper hand in subsequent talks with Washington by threatening to curtail rare earth exports,” said Ali Wyne, a specialist in U.S.-China relations at the International Crisis Group. “The administration’s desire for a trade détente stems from the self-inflicted consequences of its earlier hubris.”It’s unclear whether Washington and Beijing can reach a grand bargain over America’s biggest grievances. Among these are lax Chinese protection of intellectual property rights and Beijing’s subsidies and other industrial policies that, the Americans say, give Chinese firms an unfair advantage in world markets and have contributed to a massive U.S. trade deficit with China of $262 billion last year.Reade doesn’t expect much beyond limited agreements such as the Chinese saying they will buy more American soybeans and promising to do more to stop the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl and to allow the continued flow of rare-earth magnets.But the tougher issues will likely linger, and “the trade war will continue grinding ahead for years into the future,” said Jeff Moon, a former U.S. diplomat and trade official who now runs the China Moon Strategies consultancy.
Associated Press Staff Writers Josh Boak and Huizhong Wu contributed to this story.
Paul Wiseman and Didi Tang, Associated Press
Cryptocurrency exchange Bullish has updated its stock price target ahead of its initial public offering, the company said in a regulatory filing on Monday. Here’s what you need to know about the changes to one of the most closely watched IPOs of the year.
What’s happened?
Bullish, a cryptocurrency exchange and owner of the CoinDesk crypto news site, has filed an amendment to its Form F-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In that amendment, Bullish revealed that it is upping both the number of shares it will be offering in its IPO as well as increasing its estimated offering share price.
The amendment was filed with the SEC on Monday.
In the amendment, Bullish revealed that it now plans to offer 30 million ordinary shares of Bullish stock. Previously, Bullish said it expected to issue 20.3 million shares in its IPO.
Bullish has also raised its expected IPO price. Now the company says it expects to price shares between $32 and $33 each. Previously, Bullish said its shares would be offered for $28 to $31 each.
Bullish stock will trade under the ticker BLSH.
IPO calendar websites and a number of media outlets have reported that Bullish is expected to list it shares tomorrow (Wednesday, August 13) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Fast Company reached out to Bullish for more details on the timeline.
Why is Bullish increasing its share price and offering?
In its amended Form F-1, Bullish didnt explicitly state the reason that it was increasing both its share price range and the total number of shares it is offering in its IPO.
However, whenever a company that is going public raises its share price or the number of shares it has on offer, it suggests a higher demand for its stock than once thought.
As Fast Company previously reported, Bullish originally planned a 20.3 million share offering of $28 to $31 each, which would have valued Bullish at approximately $4.2 billion. But as noted by CNBC, under its new offering, Bullish now stands to be valued at $4.8 billion.
The company is expected to raise about $990 million from its IPO.
Bullishs IPO will be closely watched
How investors react to Bullishs IPO will be closely watched by Wall Street. If Bullish has a successful IPO and shares surge after trading begins, it will suggest a growing investor appetite for initial public offerings heading into the second half of the year.
Other private cryptocurrency companies will also be watching the Bullish IPO closely. Already this year, the markets have seen a number of high-profile crypto and fintech IPOs.
Circle Internet Group, an issuer of stablecoins, went public in June and shares (NYSE: CRCL) soared a staggering 750%.
However, after eToro went public in May, its shares (Nasdaq: ETOR) briefly spiked, before falling back some. Currently, ETOR shares are up about 6.3% for the year.
Investors will be hoping that BLSH shares behave more like CRCL than ETOR.
