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Trade Wars
Realtor.Com Predicts Gradual Housing Market Recovery In 2026
Realtor.com released its 2026 Housing Forecast, projecting a cautious stabilization in the housing market after several years of affordability challenges, limited supply and tepid activity. Buyer conditions are expected to improve gradually as mortgage rates ease, incomes rise and more homes come onto the market. Still, the recovery is expected to remain slow, with existing-home sales staying well below normal levels and broader political and economic uncertainty keeping the outlook fragile.
- The average 30-year mortgage rate will hover near 6.3% in 2026 — slightly below the 2025 average of 6.6%.
- Home prices are projected to rise 2.2% in 2026, following a 2.0% increase in 2025. But those nominal gains are not expected to keep pace with inflation, meaning real home prices will fall for the second year in a row.
- Active listings are expected to grow 8.9% in 2026, the third consecutive year of expansion.
- Four in five mortgage-holding homeowners have a rate below 6%, leaving many reluctant to move unless prompted by major life events. This ‘lock-in effect’ will continue shaping the market. Existing-home sales are forecast to rise 1.7% in 2026 to 4.13 million — still among the slowest levels in decades.
Read more at Housing Wire
Humanoid Robot Digit Moves 100,000 Totes at Distribution Center
Agility Robotics' humanoid robot, Digit, has moved more than 100,000 totes at GXO Logistics' Flowery Branch facility in Georgia. Logistics operators face a combination of rising throughput demands and persistent labor shortages, driving the need for automation that can both scale and adapt. Unlike fixed robotic arms or single-purpose AMRs, Digit’s humanlike form lets it operate in existing facilities without major infrastructure changes. It can handle varied tasks within the same workflow, from transferring totes between AMRs and conveyors to stacking them in different locations.
The milestone confirms Digit’s ability to perform these jobs consistently, at high payload capacities, and across thousands of cycles. Capabilities such as dynamic balancing and vision-driven grasping have been tested repeatedly across changing environments, with the 100K-tote metric demonstrating seamless integration into live operational workflows—not just isolated tasks
Read more at Assembly Magazine
Amazon Tests 30-Minute Delivery
Amazon is testing half-hour or quicker deliveries of groceries and household essentials in parts of Seattle and Philadelphia, the e-commerce giant said Monday. The ultra-speedy delivery, dubbed Amazon Now, is about $14 per order, or about $4 for Prime members. Orders under $15 also incur a fee of about $2. In order to facilitate this offer, the company said it has placed small fulfillment facilities designed for efficiency “close to where Seattle- and Philadelphia-area customers live and work.”
“While this offering is in early test mode, we think Amazon Now is potentially an important step toward Amazon matching or even surpassing the immediacy benefit of in-store purchasing,” Post said in a Tuesday client note. The Amazon Now delivery option could also bolster the appeal of Prime and drive advertising revenue on the Amazon site, according to Bank of America.
Read more at Supply Chain Dive
Pentagon Unveils Drone Dominance Program With ‘Gauntlets’ To Rapidly Expand Its Small UAS Arsenal
The Pentagon plans to purchase more than 200,000 industry-made drones by 2027 — with forthcoming orders for 30,000 of those unmanned assets to be delivered by July 2026 — via its new Drone Dominance Program. This initiative builds on policies and guidance that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued this summer to spark growth across the U.S. industrial base and rapidly equip the military with a trusted arsenal of cheap and lethal options for small uncrewed aerial systems.
In that RFI and on a new website, the Defense Department supplied a first look at its iterative, high-dollar plan to signal demand and propel industry competition by testing and buying a range of small commercial drones over the next two years. The Pentagon aims to place $1 billion in fixed-price orders through the program, utilizing an authority that enables it to carry out certain prototype projects. Notably, the DDP will unfold over four phases. Each will start with a “Gauntlet challenge” and end with completed deliveries of production-quality drones from the winners of those events, where military operators will fly and evaluate select, commercial drones in various scenarios.
Read more at Defense Scoop
MDA Picks Over 1,000 Initial Winners For Golden Dome Contracting Vehicle
The Missile Defense Agency Monday announced it has tapped hundreds of companies to supply tech for the Golden Dome initiative, though only those who receive orders later will get a piece of a prize pool worth up to $151 billion. “This contract encompasses a broad range of work areas that allows for the rapid delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter with increased speed and agility, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning enabled applications where pertinent, and maximizing use of digital engineering, open systems architectures, model-based systems engineering, and agile processes in the acquisition, development, and sustainment of these capabilities,” MDA wrote in the contract announcement this evening, in which it did not identify the individual winners.
MDA has been working to get industry on board and issued a public presolicitation notice for SHIELD in late July. It then summoned interested parties to Huntsville, Ala. in early August to outline new details about the ambitions of Golden Dome and the contracting vehicle. Last week Space Force made a first set of awards for prototypes for space-based interceptors (SBIs) meant to shoot down incoming enemy missiles in their boost phase just minutes after launch — but the winners of the initial, relatively small contracts are shrouded in secrecy.
Read more at Breaking Defense
Airbus Cuts 2025 Delivery Target In Wake Of A320 Fuselage Panel Issue
Airbus has lowered its target for commercial aircraft deliveries this year, after finding a quality issue affecting the fuselage panels on its bestselling A320 jets. The aircraft manufacturer now expects to deliver around 790 commercial planes this year, down from its previous target of about 820. Still, Airbus maintained its 2025 financial guidance - adjusted EBIT of around €7B (~$8.1B) and free cash flow before customer financing of about €4.5B ($5.2B). The company delivered 585 aircraft by the end of October. It will disclose its November orders and deliveries on Friday.
Jefferies analysts said the 30 aircraft removed from the delivery target "are not all expected to require a parts change, but for now only require a non-destructive test to be performed." The quality issue relates to the thickness of panels on top of the cockpit and either side of the plane's right and left front doors. Some 628 planes reportedly had the defective panels installed. The component in question is dual-sourced, "with only one of the supplier facing a quality escape, which has already been resolved at the production level," Jefferies noted.
Read more at Seeking Alpha
Macy’s Posts Strongest Growth In More Than 3 Years, But Strikes Cautious Note On Holidays
Macy’s on Wednesday beat Wall Street’s sales expectations for the third quarter in a row and posted its strongest growth in more than three years as the company’s turnaround strategy showed signs of momentum. The department store operator raised its full-year sales and earnings outlook after its better-than-expected fiscal third quarter. The retailer now expects adjusted earnings per share of between $2 and $2.20, up from its previous expectation of $1.70 to $2.05, and net sales of $21.48 billion to $21.63 billion, compared with its prior outlook of $21.15 billion and $21.45 billion.
In an interview with CNBC, CEO Tony Spring said the company is taking a “prudent view” of the fourth quarter because it faces tough year-over-year comparisons and because it’s not sure how “aspirational customers,” those who like to shop at its stores but are more financially pressured, may spend during the season. “We’re pleased with the fourth quarter to date, but we have a big holiday in front of us,” he said.
Read more at CNBC
Lego To Launch Life-Size World Cup Trophy As Part Of FIFA Deal
t’s a life-size World Cup soccer trophy — made of 2,842 Lego bricks. Lego teamed up with FIFA on Wednesday to announce the product that will launch the classic Danish toy brand’s first World Cup range next year. The Lego version of the trophy first presented at the 1974 World Cup will be the exact same height of 36.8 centimeters (14 ½ inches). But the Lego brick trophy will be plastic instead of 18 carat solid gold and green malachite, and easier to pick up than the original’s 6.175 kilograms (13.6 pounds).
It goes on sale for $200 in March and will include “a hidden scene which can be opened via a pullable slip in the upper globe section,” Lego said in a statement. FIFA keeps the original trophy in Zurich. The first 48-team men’s World Cup co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico opens June 11.
Read more at CNBC
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