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US holiday retail sales set to outpace last year’s seasonal growth performance to exceed $1 trillion for the first time–Bain & Company forecasts

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US retail sales to grow 4.5% YoY in crucial holiday shopping season in November-December Online shopping to accelerate further with nonstore sales expected to grow 9% YoY, driving ~ 60% of nominal sales growth; in-store sales growth to be similar to last yearRetailers face headwinds as shoppers’ budgets remain under pressure due to inflation and stalled wage growth. Inflation will account for more than half of the nominal rise in sales

NEW YORK, Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — US retail sales over the upcoming November-December holiday shopping season, crucial for retailers’ trading, are poised to set a new record this year and top $1 trillion for the first time, Bain & Company forecasts today.

The new all-time high for holiday sales is expected to be driven by 4.5% year-on-year (YoY) growth in nominal terms – well ahead of a 3.5% YoY rise recorded in the 2025 holiday season, Bain projects in its annual US retail holiday forecast.

But Bain also tempers the upbeat view of the holiday outlook for retailers, noting that more than half of the nominal sales growth will come from higher inflation as this pushes up prices for consumers in malls, shops and online.

In-store sales drive 70% of the holiday season, most new growth coming from nonstore sales

The strongest sales growth in the holiday period is expected to come from a further jump in online buying, Bain forecasts based on findings from its Consumer Lab’s survey of more than 1,100 consumers. Today’s analysis projects that nonstore retail sales will grow 9% YoY, accelerating compared with last year and generating 60% of overall sales growth, up from 50% last year.

Alongside, growth in in-store sales is expected by Bain to remain in line with last year, at 2.5% YoY, with the strongest performance predicted to come from the clothing and accessories segment, as well as from health and personal care products. Consumers say they expect clothing (43%) to overtake groceries (37%) as their highest-spending category in the holiday season, with gift cards (named by 36% of respondents) coming a close third.

Shoppers say they anticipate spending more this year, especially among men, higher income earners, and younger consumers. More online shoppers plan to start the coming season’s holiday shopping experience on AI platforms such as Claude, Google Gemini and ChatGPT (24% this year, up from 17% in 2025), as well as on retail and brand websites (60%, up from 51% in 2025), where an additional 13% plan to use retailer AI agents.

Headwinds weigh on shoppers, but tailwinds may support holiday sales growth 

While Bain forecasts most categories will post nominal sales growth this holiday season, inflation is expected to count for much of the increase. Sales in some retail categories will remain flat, including furniture and home furnishings, electronics and appliances, and food and beverage. General merchandise, clothing and accessories, and e-commerce are expected to see both price and unit growth.

Underlying the headwinds faced by retailers are cautious consumers whose spending power is being weighed down by gasoline prices that remain stubbornly high, as well as the impact of tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty, labor market participation at a five-year low (despite a stable national unemployment rate of 4.1%), and lower personal savings rates twinned with increasing credit card delinquency above the 10-year average.

Despite these pressures, several factors are expected by Bain to help support nominal sales growth, including higher tax refunds that are up $43 billion from last year, higher stock prices with a 23% increase of the S&P 500 index YoY buoying the outlook of upper-income households, and also plans by some retailers to pass on tariff refunds to shoppers in the form of cuts in prices.

“While US retailers have reason to rejoice this holiday season as the industry reaches the trillion-dollar milestone for the first time, there are underlying factors that will temper bottom lines,” said Aaron Cheris, partner at Bain & Company and global head of the firm’s Retail practice. “The key for retailers is to make the most of the crucial holiday season by striking the right balance when it comes to price and promotions, and making the most of new AI capabilities to enhance the customer experience and get ahead of competitors.”

Four key tactics for winning retailers in this holiday season

Bain’s report maps out four key tactics that it recommends winning retailers should deploy to outperform during the forthcoming holiday shopping season:

Get in the zone on price, as price sensitivity returns to the forefront of purchase decisions, and AI-enabled comparison makes gaps easier to spotEmphasize assortment that can’t be cross-shopped or price-matched line for lineWin the big shopping days: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and October promotional events with around 90% of shoppers planning to spend in at least one major retail sale event this holiday season, through personalized promotions and can’t-miss eventsInvest in the customer experience and use AI to bolster it, knowing that emotional stakes are high over the holidays and a bad experience travels into next year

This is the first of a series of retail holiday updates from Bain & Company that will publish through January 2027. 

Media contacts
To arrange an interview or for any questions, please contact: 
Dan Pinkney (Boston) – Email: dan.pinkney@bain.com
Gary Duncan (London) – Email: gary.duncan@bain.com
Ann Lee (Singapore) – Email: ann.lee@bain.com

About Bain & Company
Bain & Company works with leaders worldwide to solve their toughest challenges and deliver enduring results. Since 1973, we’ve partnered with clients, including private equity and portfolio companies, to build the capabilities they need to stay ahead of change and help them redefine their industries. We measure our success by our clients’ success, and we proudly hold the highest levels of client advocacy in our field.

Bain is consistently recognized globally as one of the best places to work. We operate as one global team, uniting strategists, industry and functional experts, technologists, and advisors with a vibrant ecosystem of technology partners. 

Notes to Editors
Bain & Company was founded in 1973 and today has 19,000 employees across 67 cities in 40 countries. We have worked with more than two-thirds of the Global 500 and more than 9,000 companies worldwide. Bain has pledged to deliver $2 billion in pro bono consulting to nonprofit, public-sector and charitable organizations by 2035. The firm is consistently recognized as a Leader in major analyst rankings across multiple areas, including digital business, innovation, strategy, experience design, customer experience, and carbon-zero transformation.

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ThreatLocker Highlights Key Cyber Threat Activity and Research from August 2026

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Recap includes AI agent security, ClickFix attacks, exposed infrastructure, zero-day research, and company momentum

ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — ThreatLocker today released highlights of the company’s cybersecurity research and company news from August.

“Everyone was talking about AI in August, but the incidents we analyzed reinforced that most security problems still follow familiar paths,” said Danny Jenkins, CEO & Co-founder of ThreatLocker. “The attacks we looked at were caused by trusted access, regardless of whether AI was involved.”

Basic Controls Are Still Most Important

The month’s incidents showed why basic cybersecurity controls cannot be treated as a secondary problem to AI. Attacks targeting water systems showed how exposed infrastructure default credentials still create serious risk.

ThreatLocker also examined why ClickFix is so effective against security-aware users. ClickFix does not just rely on a user trusting the wrong prompt. It also depends on trusted system tools, including PowerShell and Command Prompt, being allowed to execute commands or reach the internet without enough restriction.

ThreatLocker MDR intercepted ACR Stealer delivered by ClickFix, showing how the social engineering technique can be used to deliver credential-stealing malware. The incident highlighted the need to limit what can execute and what it can reach if a user is tricked.

The company also published guidance on why cybersecurity strategy is shifting from threat detection to threat containment, as well as how to build cyber resilience that survives a compromise.

AI Security Still Requires Trust Boundaries

AI was still an important part of the August cybersecurity story, but not because it replaced traditional security concerns. The issue was how much access AI tools and agents receive once they are added to business environments, and what they are allowed to do with that access.

ThreatLocker’s research examined the security problems created by AI tools and agents, including how the Cursor AI hack highlights AI shortcomings, what happens when an AI agent can access secrets, and how indirect prompt injection can manipulate AI agents through untrusted data.

The company also explored what permissions autonomous AI agents should have, and the difference between excessive agency and least agency. The common question across those pieces was not whether organizations should use AI, but how to put boundaries around what AI tools can access, execute, and change.

AI security was a major focus at Black Hat and DEF CON in Las Vegas, where ThreatLocker participated in discussions about AI-driven cyber risk, workplace AI tools, and the changing role of defenders. At Black Hat, Jenkins delivered a mainstage session, “Defending against hidden risks of AI tools in the workplace,” focused on how AI tools can bypass controls and introduce new attack surfaces. Jenkins also joined Lead Cybersecurity Engineer Kieran Human for the breakout session, “Red teamer or AI-powered attacker? Generating, evading, and delivering malware with AI,” which demonstrated AI malware creation and exploit detection.

Exploits and Exposed Systems

ThreatLocker tracked new exploit activity and risks involving trusted tools throughout August.

The company analyzed ShieldBreak, a proof-of-concept exploit from NightmareEclipse that targets the same weakness as RoguePlanet. The company’s threat intelligence team also examined the N-able N-central vulnerability, which showed how vulnerable remote monitoring can give attackers access if left exposed.

ThreatLocker further published research on WiFi Pineapple hacking, and supply chain security lessons and best practices.

Industry Engagement and Company Momentum

ThreatLocker leaders participated in industry conversations throughout August on AI agents, phishing, session hijacking, and why foundational controls still matter most as attack techniques become more convincing.

ThreatLocker also announced a $190 million Series F funding round to support product innovation and global expansion. As part of that growth, the company announced plans to open a new office in Reading, U.K.

About ThreatLocker

ThreatLocker is a global cybersecurity leader that stops cyberattacks before they happen. The company’s Zero Trust Platform prevents breaches from both known and unknown threats by allowing only explicitly trusted software and activity across endpoints, networks, and cloud systems. Built to deploy quickly and scale across complex environments, the platform reduces operational overhead while keeping business running uninterrupted. Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, with offices in Dublin, Dubai, and Brisbane, ThreatLocker protects over 70,000 organizations worldwide.

Contact: press@threatlocker.com, 321-515-3813

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APX Lending Launches Five-Year Bitcoin and Ethereum-Backed Line of Credit, Closing the Gap Between Digital Assets & Traditional Finance

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Canada’s first regulated digital-asset-backed lender launches a five-year revolving facility that lets clients borrow against Bitcoin, Ethereum or both, with no origination, prepayment or liquidation fees and up to $250 million in collateral insurance coverage.

TORONTO, Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — For more than a decade, digital assets have promised to become part of everyday finance. But delivering on that promise requires more than innovation alone. It requires financial infrastructure people can trust and use. APX Lending (“APX”) has spent years building the regulated credit products and systems needed to make that possible. The launch of the APX Line of Credit is the latest step toward that goal.

Built for Real-World Financial Needs

APX clients have already used digital-asset-backed loans to finance businesses, pay down high-interest debt, put money toward mortgages and meet other real-world financial needs. The APX Line of Credit is designed for the reality that those needs often evolve over time, rather than arriving as a single transaction.

This new offering expands APX’s digital-asset credit platform, which now spans fixed-term lending, revolving credit and Lending-as-a-Service.

How the Line of Credit Works

The five-year revolving facility lets clients borrow against Bitcoin, Ethereum or both, repay principal when they choose and redraw available credit as their needs change.

Borrowers establish the facility once rather than applying for a new loan each time they need liquidity. Interest accrues only on the amount drawn, with no interest charged on unused capacity and no fees for repaying drawn funds.

Annual rates range from 10.49% to 11.99%, depending on the outstanding balance, and there are no origination, prepayment or liquidation fees.

“At APX, we’re constantly asking how credit against digital assets can be made safer, more flexible and better for the borrower,” said Andrei Poliakov, Founder and CEO of APX Lending. “A revolving line of credit is something our clients have asked us for repeatedly. You may need money for a purchase today, an investment three months from now and a business expense later in the year. You shouldn’t have to start a new loan every time. We built the Line of Credit so you establish the facility once, then draw, repay and redraw as your needs change.”

Bitcoin and Ethereum, Together

Unlike APX‘s fixed-term loans, which are collateralized by either BTC or ETH, the Line of Credit can use both assets together to calculate borrowing capacity.

For example, a client holding $200,000 of Bitcoin and $100,000 of Ethereum can use the combined $300,000 value to support a single line of credit. At 60% LTV, that collateral could provide up to $180,000 of borrowing capacity.

Available credit changes dynamically based on the current market value of the collateral and the amount already drawn. As collateral values rise or fall, borrowing capacity adjusts with them.

Built on Years of Infrastructure, Not Just a New Feature

Putting “line of credit” on a product page is easy. Making it hold up for a volatile asset class, at scale, with real money on the line, is a different problem entirely. It is a problem APX has spent years building the fundamentals to solve.

From choosing to operate within a regulated framework when much of the digital-asset lending market did not, to building the systems that now power APX products and third-party lending solutions, APX has developed the infrastructure needed to make digital assets more practical in everyday finance and safer to borrow against.

That infrastructure includes:

Regulatory framework: APX operates within a regulated framework built specifically for digital-asset-backed lending, with compliance processes supporting its lending activities across multiple jurisdictions. Institutional-grade custody and insurance: client collateral is held in segregated BitGo Trust cold-storage wallets, never rehypothecated and protected by insurance coverage of up to $250 million. On-chain transparency: clients can independently verify their collateral on-chain 24/7 through the APX platform. Automated collateral and risk management: APX continuously monitors digital-asset prices and loan LTVs, with systems built to manage margin notifications and partial liquidations as market conditions change. That includes APX’s 90/85 Standard, which liquidates only enough collateral to reduce LTV from 90% to 85%, preserving as much of the client’s digital-asset holdings as possible. Security and operational controls: APX’s security program includes SOC 2-audited controls designed to support the systems, processes and safeguards required to operate digital-asset lending infrastructure reliably and at scale.

That same foundation powers APX’s global Lending-as-a-Service offering, enabling financial institutions and fintechs to offer APX-powered digital-asset lending products to their own clients without building the infrastructure from scratch.

Bringing Digital Assets and Traditional Finance Together

The digital-asset industry has given both clients and traditional financial institutions plenty of reasons to be cautious. That caution has helped keep digital assets and traditional finance in separate worlds. APX’s mission is to bring those worlds closer together by building regulated digital-asset credit infrastructure around custody, transparency, compliance and risk management. The goal is simple: clients should be able to access liquidity against their digital assets without having to choose between the flexibility those assets offer and the standards they expect from traditional finance.

APX was the first digital-asset-backed lender approved by the Canadian securities regulators and is registered with both FINTRAC and FinCEN.

“Digital assets do not need to live in a separate corner of finance,” said Poliakov. “The people using them want the same things everyone else wants: access to financial products that give them greater freedom and control over their lives, confidence that their assets are safe, complete transparency into who they are dealing with, and a system they can rely on when they need it. We have spent years building APX around that idea, because trust is what ultimately brings these two worlds together.”

The APX Line of Credit is now available to eligible borrowers in supported jurisdictions at www.apxlending.com.

About APX Lending 
Founded in 2023, APX Lending is a regulated digital-asset credit infrastructure company providing crypto-backed loans directly to borrowers and powering partner-branded products through its Lending-as-a-Service platform. APX combines technology, underwriting, capital, collateral management, servicing and compliance to help partners launch embedded crypto-backed credit products. 

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In HelloNation, Hearing Expert Allison Liberio Highlights Early Signs of Hearing Loss Adults Should Not Ignore

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The article explains subtle symptoms and why early recognition supports better long-term auditory health.

SOUTHLAKE, Texas, Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — What are the early signs of hearing loss that adults should not ignore? A HelloNation article featuring Hearing Expert Allison Liberio of Family Hearing Practice in Southlake, Texas, explores how hearing loss in adults develops gradually and what signals may indicate a need for attention.

The HelloNation article explains that hearing loss in adults often begins slowly, making early symptoms easy to overlook. One of the most common early signs of hearing loss is frequently asking others to repeat themselves during everyday conversations. The article notes that when this happens consistently, even in quiet settings, it may reflect a developing issue rather than a simple distraction.

Another early indicator involves increasing the volume on televisions or radios. The article describes how this change often goes unnoticed by the individual but is recognized by others nearby. When volume levels feel comfortable to one person but too loud to others, it can signal a shift in auditory health.

Difficulty understanding conversations in noisy environments is also highlighted as a key warning sign. The article explains that many adults with early hearing loss can hear voices but struggle to understand what is being said, especially in restaurants, social gatherings, or busy workplaces. Speech may sound muffled or unclear when background noise competes for attention, making conversations harder to follow even when voices seem loud enough.

The article also notes behavioral changes that may develop over time. Some individuals begin avoiding social interactions without realizing that hearing challenges are the underlying cause. As conversations require more effort, withdrawal can happen gradually.

Phone conversations may also become more difficult. The article explains that without visual cues, such as facial expressions or lip movements, individuals with hearing loss in adults may struggle more to understand speech. Increased effort or frequent misunderstandings during calls can indicate a change in hearing ability.

Tinnitus is another condition discussed in the article. Described as ringing, buzzing, or hissing in the ears, tinnitus often appears alongside hearing changes. While not everyone with tinnitus has hearing loss, the article notes that persistent symptoms should be evaluated by an audiologist to better understand potential connections.

The article also explains how high-frequency hearing loss can affect clarity rather than volume. Individuals may hear that someone is speaking but struggle to distinguish certain consonant sounds, causing words to blend together in conversation. The article notes that this pattern is often mistaken for other mumbling, even though it may reflect underlying hearing changes.

Fatigue after conversations is another sign that may go unrecognized. The article describes how the brain works harder to process incomplete sound signals, which can lead to increased mental strain. Feeling unusually tired after meetings or social interactions may indicate that the auditory system is under pressure.

Risk factors are also addressed, with age identified as the most common contributor. However, the article emphasizes that noise-induced hearing loss, certain medications, and health conditions can affect individuals at many stages of life.

A hearing evaluation is presented as the most reliable way to assess these changes. The article explains that visiting an audiologist provides a clear understanding of hearing ability and helps guide next steps. In most cases, the process is straightforward and offers valuable insight into overall auditory health.

The article concludes by emphasizing that early recognition matters. Addressing the early signs of hearing loss can help preserve communication, maintain relationships, and support quality of life over time.

Early Signs of Hearing Loss Adults Should Not Ignore features insights from Allison Liberio, Hearing Experts of Southlake, Texas, in HelloNation.

About HelloNation

HelloNation is America’s Good News Network, a premier media platform built on the idea that good news travels faster when real people tell real stories. Through its community-focused digital publications and innovative “edvertising” approach, HelloNation delivers expert-driven, good-news content that informs, inspires, and spotlights the leaders making a meaningful impact in their communities.

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