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For a small group of U.S. listed stocks sitting at the intersection of critical materials and defense supply chains, this is a green light. And for one name inside that group, Evolution Metals & Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: EMAT), it is arguably the most direct policy tailwind of the year.

Here is why. A drone is not really a drone story. Every rotor motor, every stabilized camera gimbal, every actuator inside a modern unmanned aircraft runs on rare earth permanent magnets, the same neodymium iron boron chemistry that goes into F-35 flight controls, missile fin actuators, and Tomahawk guidance packages. When Washington tariffs foreign drones and their critical components at 100 percent, it is telling every domestic drone builder and every prime contractor that touches the defense drone supply chain to find non-China magnets, and to find them fast. Stack that on top of the July 20 executive order, which from January 1, 2027 shuts off most of the nonavailability waivers contractors have used to work around 10 U.S.C. 4872, the statute behind DFARS 252.225-7052. That Pentagon clause bars contractors, from the same date, from having any component containing rare earth magnets mined, refined, separated, melted, or produced in China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran, and for neodymium iron boron it reaches the entire chain from mining through the finished magnet. Put the two together and you have a coordinated policy push that reads like a shopping list for one very specific corner of the market.

The list of publicly traded U.S. names that could plausibly answer that shopping list is short. Most have heard of MP Materials and USA Rare Earth. MP Materials (NYSE: MP) has been working to bring its Fort Worth Independence facility online as what it calls America’s first fully integrated rare earth magnet plant, still ramping toward first commercial magnet output. USA Rare Earth (NASDAQ: USAR) has commissioned its first commercial magnet line in Stillwater, Oklahoma, but has not yet generated revenue from finished NdFeB magnets. In parallel, Critical Metals Corp (NASDAQ: CRML) and Energy Fuels (NYSE American: UUUU) sit further upstream on the mining and processing side, though Energy Fuels has announced pending acquisitions that would extend it into magnet manufacturing. Each of them fits the profile Washington is writing rules around. Each of them has real ambition. And none of them is yet shipping qualified, non-China magnets at commercial scale. The urgency in the policy right now brings a different kind of company into view, one that is already selling magnets today.

That company is EMAT. Through its operating subsidiaries, EMAT has more than 18 years of commercial scale rare earth magnet production, and states that those operations began selling magnets to Ford, Hyundai, LG, and Samsung in 2008. Sintered NdFeB production was added in 2024, with first sintered sales in 2025. In June, those operations completed customer quality certification with two global Tier 1 electronics OEMs across six grades of sintered NdFeB, including the heavy rare earth containing compositions that show up in the highest performance drone and defense motors. In May, EMAT placed a binding order with ULVAC Korea for thirteen high performance sintered magnet machines, scheduled for delivery in November 2026, which management projects would, on commissioning, lift annual capacity toward roughly 10,000 metric tons, including some 6,000 tons of high performance sintered product, against roughly 660 tons of disclosed capacity today. That is two months before DFARS goes live. In July, EMAT took physical delivery of its first shipment of non-China neodymium praseodymium metal, traced ore to metal through SRE Vietnam, a subsidiary of Tokai Trading of Japan, under a supply contract with Senri Trading. The shipment landed two days after the July 20 executive order. Notably, EMAT has a publicly stated target of roughly 55,000 metric tons of U.S. magnet capacity by 2028.

And then there is the boardroom. Former Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller. Ambassador Robin S. Bernstein. Andrew F. Knaggs, formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism, now the company’s President. And this week, General Thomas A. Bussiere, the four star former Commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, whose last uniformed job put him in charge of America’s bomber force, its ICBMs, and its nuclear command, control and communications enterprise. Four senior national security operators do not attach their names to a small critical materials company by accident.

Put yesterday’s tariff back in context. The White House keeps writing the same policy over and over. First defense magnets, now drones. In both cases the choke point is the same rare earth chemistry, and in both cases the door is closing on China. The urgency Washington has now created favors whoever can ship qualified magnets first, and EMAT is the one name in this group already selling them. Execution risk still applies, and financing will need to be secured as the company scales. However, Washington is now writing the rules and setting the deadlines around exactly the profile of company EMAT seems to already be.

The next 140 days are going to be worth watching.

Recent News Highlights from Evolution Metals & Technologies (NASDAQ: EMAT):

Evolution Metals & Technologies Corp. Appoints U.S. Air Force General Thomas A. Bussiere (Ret.) to Board of Directors

Evolution Metals & Technologies Appoints Industry Veteran Kenji Konishi to Lead Rare Earth Magnet Engineering Production

Evolution Metals & Technologies Corp. Receives First Non-China NdPr Metal Shipment for Defense-Compliant Rare Earth Magnet Production, Aligning with New White House Executive Order

Evolution Metals & Technologies Corp. Enters into Supply Contract of Non-China, Critical Rare Earth Metals in its Ongoing Magnet Production Operations

Evolution Metals & Technologies Corp. Validates Commercial-Scale Non-China Rare Earth Magnet Supply Capability Ahead of January 2027 DFARS Defense Sourcing Deadline 

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Why Are Four of Washington's Most Senior Defense Officials All Working for the Same Nasdaq Company?

Important Disclaimers and Disclosures: The author, Wall Street Wire, is a content and media technology platform that connects the market with under-the-radar companies. The platform operates a network of industry-focused media channels spanning finance, biopharma, cyber, AI, and additional sectors, delivering insights on both broader market developments and emerging or overlooked companies. Wall Street Wire is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser. References to market size estimates, valuations, price targets, or other third-party data are provided strictly for informational purposes. Wall Street Wire receives cash compensation from Evolution Metals & Technologies Corp. (the "Issuer") for coverage and awareness services, which are provided on an ongoing subscription basis. The content above is a form of paid advertising and promotion and is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. This article may contain forward-looking statements about the Issuer's products, plans, or prospects that are subject to risks and uncertainties; actual results may differ materially, and readers should review the Issuer's public filings on SEC EDGAR (sec.gov/edgar) for full risk factors. Market size figures, research estimates, or other third-party data referenced in this article are quoted from publicly available sources believed to be reliable; however, we do not independently verify or endorse them, and additional figures or estimates may exist. Full compensation details, information about the operator of Wall Street Wire, and the complete set of disclaimers and disclosures applicable to this content are available at: wallstwire.ai/disclosures. This article should not be considered an official communication of the Issuer. Images may be computer generated and are for entertainment and visualization purposes only, and may not be an accurate or exact depiction of any technology, product, or person named.

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In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist from Northway Games, you play as Sol, one of the first children born aboard a colony ship en route to the alien planet Vertumna. You age from 10 to 20 over the course of the game, and every formative event of your life — a fight with a friend, the first time you kissed someone, the worst thing that ever happened to you – gets converted into a literal playing card representing that memory. Later in the game, when you need to, say, ace a school project or survive an encounter with the planet’s wildlife, you don’t roll dice or unsheath a sword. Instead, you assemble a poker-ish hand out of your own childhood…and hope it does the trick.

It’s a strange mechanic to sit with. On a structural level, the game is arguing that you are made of what’s happened to you. As it progresses, that mechanic goes a step further. You can choose to delete your lower-level cards to make room for others as you grow — which, translated into real-life terms, means you can choose to forget things. Earlier memories like “giggling” or “crawling” get shuffled out; something potentially heavier gets swapped in. In a 2023 interview with Game Developer, designer Sarah Northway described needing something in-game that the player could look at to reinforce who they were. The deck does that, like a stat sheet or a skill tree does. But since you compile it and swap cards in and out and can (metaphorically) hold the deck in your hands, it feels more real…and more fragile.

But that’s the big-feelings message of the game. When you play, you start by picking an activity for the season — a part-time job scooping bug guts in a xenobiology lab, hanging out with other colonists, looting the edges of the map, or school. Every choice you make does lock you out of the other paths for that time period, which nudges you to specialize. You’ll obtain points by succeeding at card challenges and hitting story beats, allocate those points to stats like Rebellion or Empathy, and, as you level up, realize you have new dialogue, new activities, new people you can date, all open to you. Ignore a stat entirely, and there may or may not be entire characters you’ll never quite get to know, or storylines that you’ll never be able to experience. (There are zero life lessons here.)

Image: Northway Games / Finji

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist often crops up as a recommendation in cozy-game circles. Just as constantly, someone will reply to point out that it’s absolutely not a cozy game, since it gets into real trauma, loss, and grief. I don’t think this is a contradiction. I think a game can be cozy and difficult, comforting and devastating. I Was a Teenage Exocolonist has earned its spot in both camps; it’s cozy because the art is soft, the music is gentle, and the rhythm of daily colony life is deliberately unhurried — and it’s a story you’ll never forget, because its hardest and saddest choices don’t hold back.

You won’t forget the story, but Sol might. Finish one life, and your next, in a New Game+, begins with knowledge baked-in that you shouldn’t yet have. Sol will see shortcuts through relationships already built, or experience odd visions warning you away from dangers you’ve already stumbled into. It’s less a true new game, and closer to what The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask does with its loop…just a full decade instead of three days, and a card game instead of an ocarina.

Image: Northway Games/Finji

While you can breeze through an initial run in 12-15 hours, many players sink 80, 90, 100 hours into this game. As it turns out, that “try again, but differently, and you might have more insight this time” is a concept many of us would like to see in our own lives. In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, we can test it out.

And also, Rex is there. Who’s Rex? Rex is a fan-fave romance option. He’s also a dog-boy — and a well-written character with real insecurities. You might even end up with him, if you’re lucky. But that’s just one of the game’s 29 possible endings. That sounds like a lot, until you remember that just one decade of your one life on this one planet contains hundreds of tiny, consequential decisions. You might finish the game running the colony’s government, piloting a research vessel, or tending to your vegetable garden. No matter where your one life ends up, getting there feels so very earned — every single time you live it.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist is available on PC, PS4, PS5, and Switch. %!s()

"We're delivering on everything that we said we're going to deliver on," D'Amaro said. "I think there's clarity inside of the organization in terms of where we need to to go next. A lot of stability with the the team. So you know, almost six months in, I'm feeling pretty good about where we are."

D'Amaro stepped into the role of Disney CEO in March, succeeding Bob Iger after a closely watched succession race and following a turnaround period at the media giant.

The longtime Disney executive had most recently served as chairman of Disney Experiences, the unit that includes the theme parks, cruise lines and consumer products, and which drives profitability for the company.

His immediate tasks since assuming the top job have been sustaining momentum in Disney's core growth areas, namely its theme parks and streaming divisions. These areas have been a focus for investors, and in recent quarters, Disney has received a mixed reception from Wall Street.

"I'm not happy with where the stock stands right now," D'Amaro said Friday. "Our investors aren't happy with that, but I do believe that we're sitting in a very great space relative to the entertainment industry."

Last week Disney reported quarterly results that once again showcased the strength of parks and streaming, and Wall Street appeared pleased with growth in Disney's theme park segment despite mounting macroeconomic uncertainty for consumers.

Still, the stock is down more than 8% in the last 12 months.

On Friday, D'Amaro said that while Disney isn't "immune" to some of the headwinds hitting theme parks, the company is positioned to respond if needed. Still, he fell short of disclosing whether further theme park price increases were coming, and instead said to expect further investments in its destinations.

Integrating streaming and shopping

The CEO has previously said that his focus in leading Disney is on investing in intellectual property.

"This next chapter is about, No. 1, telling great stories. We'll never forget that. We want to move with more speed and urgency than we have before," D'Amaro said. "Embrace technology even more aggressively than we have in the past, and importantly, bring this company together to act like 'One Disney,' which you've heard me say before."

D'Amaro highlighted the company's flagship streaming service, specifically.

"We have tremendous scale, growing scale internationally. So as it is today, I feel very good about where Disney+ is," D'Amaro said. "But there are opportunities, obviously, to keep growing it."

In this handout image provided by Disneyland Resort, Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro and The Walt Disney Company Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger speak during the 70th anniversary celebrations of Disneyland Resort on July 17, 2025 in Anaheim, California.

Handout | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

D'Amaro said last week the company is considering a free, ad-supported streaming product as a way to beckon more viewers to Disney+. On Friday, he called the option a potential "front porch" to get viewers in for free who could later become subscribers.

D'Amaro also noted the need to have all business units working in tandem and hinted at a consumer experience that could mesh viewership with buying products on the same platform.

"From a streaming perspective, instead of just being a streaming platform, why wouldn't we have all of the elements of Disney come to life right there in front of you," D'Amaro said. "Everyone may not participate in every part of the business. But certainly, if we put the right things in front of the consumer, if it's a seamless fan experience, I think that lifetime value goes up."

'Not interested in spinning off ESPN'

In the backdrop of building out streaming, Disney and its media peers have also been contending with the loss of pay-TV bundle customers, which has led to considerable declines in distribution and advertising revenues.

Live sports, however, remain a major driver for both Disney and other major networks. Disney's ESPN and ABC own the rights to live NFL and NBA, in addition to other pro leagues.

At the same time, the cost of sports rights has risen dramatically and could become a potential strain on media companies. 

"I've been clear that I'm not interested in spinning off ESPN," D'Amaro said Friday, responding to ongoing rumors and calls from investors to split off the property. 

"I think that anybody in the industry would look at our sports rights and the fandom associated with sports right now, and you can't help but be jealous of what we have here. I mean, ratings are through the roof," he said.

Media in turmoil

Despite the strong momentum for Disney, D'Amaro has also faced some drama in his first few months.

The company's latest round of cost-cutting began weeks after D'Amaro took the helm, with an initial round of layoffs affecting nearly 1,000 employees. Most recently the company reportedly cut several hundred employees from its ESPN, Pixar and National Geographic divisions.

The media industry at large has been shapeshifting in recent months, including the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery as well as Comcast's planned spinout of NBCUniversal.

D'Amaro, however, told CNBC on Friday he wasn't considering any such significant moves.

The CEO has also been faced with increasing political pressure and scrutiny, particularly around Disney's ABC. The broadcast network has faced backlash from the Trump administration and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for its "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and "The View" programs.

The FCC has also opened an early review of Disney's broadcast station licenses following concerns around the company's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Disney has shot back at the FCC throughout the early renewal process, calling it an "unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional order."

"I think you saw in our FCC filings our position on this is clear," D'Amaro said on Friday. "We're very principled on this. We're going to stand up to what we believe is journalistic and integrity, and we're not going to be told how to run that side of our business." %!s()

In the interests of full disclosure, the methodology behind this data capture has been to have one editor spend an inordinate amount of their work day tracking down the cheapest available version of each of the current generation of GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and yes, even Intel. They must be new in-box, so no refurbs or open box sales, and they must be from reputable sellers—no vendors on Amazon called sdfgwegggggwawfdasfsreqwwqeccccawef, in other words.

This data captures the very cheapest prices these GPUs were available for throughout the year, but what it doesn't capture is the average price, which has often been much higher. Sometimes there might be a good deal on a particular graphics card, while the rest of the market is significantly more expensive. But our idea was to capture what a reader could spend in a particular week to bag the GPU chipset they wanted. And we're carrying that on, with our weekly updates page always housing links to the cheapest cards we can find.

Back in August of last year, things weren't particularly pretty at all. There was a mix of low stock and high demand, which meant that graphics cards from all the various manufacturers were well over their respective MSRPs… and had been since launch. Every GPU launched in 2025 had one thing in common: There was little initial supply and the promised launch prices generally evaporated in a puff of corporate greed.

And that was all before the RAMpocalypse took hold.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

There was a beautifully innocent, AI ignorant moment in October, however, when—and I am getting a lump in my throat as I write this—pretty much every GPU except the RTX 5090 was available at or under its MSRP. We've never had it so good…

But then almost as soon as the Black Friday sales wrapped up at the end of November things went—and I hope you'll forgive the technical industry jargon here—utterly tits up.

The memory crisis started to bite into the GPU market, and graphics card prices started to rise back up again, starting with the RTX 5080, which then dragged up almost every GPU up the price ladder into the new year.

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

Lowest pricing (Price, $)

Week

Thankfully we haven't experienced the same sort of exponential price growth that has blighted either the system memory or storage markets with graphics cards. Yes, the RTX 5090 has risen in price by 83% to $4,400, but everything else hit a plateau relatively quickly and we've been living in that new normal more or less happily for most of this year.

Okay, I say 'relatively happily' but the pricing for both the RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti did hit levels that meant they could be more or less ignored by the general PC gaming populace who would never be able to countenance spending that much on a single component. And we did actually stop tracking the RTX 5090 when it hit $3,000 for that same reason: there was just no point recommending it.

And that relative stasis point for GPU pricing—there was individual fluctuation of GPUs, but little of significance—continued until, well, yesterday. I came back from a week away with the family to find Nvidia's mid-range graphics card market determined to wipe itself out. The RTX 5070 had been knocking around its $549 MSRP for a while, but all of a sudden that is over.

Tracking 12 and 16 GB graphics card pricing over 12 months

Boom, prices rocket up to $700, now $755, and largely $800 across the board. For a fourth-tier GPU that was barely an improvement over the RTX 4070 Super of the previous generation once you take out DLSS-related RTX Blackwell luxuries. The RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card has followed it, like a rat up the ludicrous pricing drainpipe, dragging an increase of 51% up there with it.

So, we're now at a point where I'm recommending that PC Gamer readers do not buy any Nvidia RTX 50-series GPU with more than 8 GB of VRAM, simply because they've priced themselves out of any form of relevance for gamers. Thankfully, the AMD RDNA 4 cards are still priced almost sensibly, though there are hints that will soon change. But for now the 12 and 16 GB Navi 48-based cards—the RX 9070 GRE, RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT—are all priced under the level of the RTX 5070.

But we're still at a point where the top five Nvidia GeForce GPUs are priced at $650 or above and that makes me want to sick up a bit. Y'know, arching my back like a cat at the thought of an RTX 5060 Ti costing that much. Ack. Acccckhh.

And where do we go from here? I'll be continuing to track the pricing of graphics cards most weeks (43 out of 52 ain't bad) so we'll see when the Radeon price bump comes into effect in retail, and then we have to figure out if this generation of graphics cards is then best just left to the datacentres and AI sickos.

What happens to the next generation of GPUs? There's been the expectation of a Super refresh for the RTX Blackwell range, which can only really offer a bump in VRAM given the silicon limitations of each GPU, and then how do you price that? Here's an RTX 5080 Super, that'll be $1,499, thanks. RTX 5070 Ti Super, ma'am? Of course it has a stupid name, but we're still going to charge you $1,200.

Thank you sir, may I have another.

Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck. %!s()

Scorecard

Sunrisers Leeds survived Southern Brave's Issy Wong-inspired fightback to reach The Hundred final with a five-wicket win in the women's Eliminator.

Chasing just 115 at The Oval, Sunrisers were cruising at 95-3 with 25 balls to go before Wong took two wickets in two balls to give Brave a glimmer of hope.

The England seamer, who finished with 3-21, claimed the key wicket of Lauren Winfield-Hill, who was bowled for 37, before trapping Sunrisers skipper Dani Gibson lbw first ball.

But Deepti Sharma held her nerve with an unbeaten 28, before Jess Jonassen calmly hit the winning boundary off Lauren Bell with 11 balls to spare.

Sunrisers will face Trent Rockets in the final at Lord's on Sunday.

Brave were left to rue a bizarrely defensive batting innings, as they played out 41 dot balls and scored just 13 boundaries in their stuttering 114-7.

Lizelle Lee gave them a positive start with 32 off 25 balls, which included the only six of the game, but the rest of the order could not capitalise.

All-rounder Charli Knott tried to revive the innings with her 25 off 21, but was left with too much to do after Maia Bouchier struggled for 15 off 17, Laura Wolvaardt fell cheaply for eight and captain Sophie Molineux trudged to 22 not out off 24.

The low target meant Winfield-Hill could anchor the innings following the early loss of both Sunrisers openers, with Bell, who took 1-14, and Wong unfortunate to be on the losing side.

After this performance, Sunrisers are looking like the team to beat despite Rockets finishing top of the table, and a win on Sunday would secure back-to-back Hundred titles for the Headingley-based franchise (formerly Northern Superchargers).

It was not the most eye-catching chase, but after Brave's dire batting effort, it did not need to be - they simply needed to get the job done, especially after Wong's late burst.

Despite such a positive start to the tournament with five straight wins, Brave ended the group stage with three defeats, in contrast to Sunrisers' four-match winning streak and the gulf in confidence was clear.

Lee was the only batter to attack, having successfully overturned when given out lbw on 16 thanks to a thin edge, while Bouchier, Wolvaardt and Molineux were all kept in check by Sunrisers' accuracy. They did not bowl a single wide, which is only the 12th time that has happened in 238 full innings in the history of The Hundred.

Young leg-spinner Hannah Baker was the star with a miserly 2-13, and while it was a fine all-round bowling effort, the Brave batters failed to live up to their name and offered little in terms of proactiveness.

Sunrisers will also take plenty of confidence from it being a relatively comfortable chase without contributions from either of their Australian superstars in Phoebe Litchfield and Annabel Sutherland, who made four and 17 respectively.

The lack of run-rate pressure meant Winfield-Hill, who previously captained Oval Invincibles on this ground, and Sharma could withstand Bell's metronomic spell before she the forer was bowled by Wong's brilliant slower ball.

Wong's average pace throughout her spell was 70mph, her quickest in the tournament, but the wicket ball was 11mph slower and breathed life into a previously flat contest.

But Sunrisers' batting depth was the key as Sharma and Jonassen, who opened earlier in the tournament before swapping with Litchfield, barely broke sweat in withstanding the pressure Wong had built. %!s()