The latest Market Talks covering Equities. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires throughout the day.
1243 ET - Restaurants are bringing back menu items and marketing from the past in a bid to win over today's consumers with nostalgia, Deutsche Bank analysts say in a note. Taco Bell and Buffalo Wild Wings have rolled out throwback menus inspired by their offerings from years ago, while Starbucks brought back its Unicorn Frappuccino for just one weekend to drive its biggest North America sales weekend ever, the analysts say. Other chains are getting in on the action too, with Olive Garden relaunching its Never-Ending Pasta Pass for the first time since 2019, Burger King offering its Crown Nuggets for a limited time after a more than decade-long hiatus, and McDonald's bringing back Spicy Chicken McNuggets for the first time since 2024, they say. (kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)
1227 ET - Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy has ended its pause on bitcoin purchasing, confirming that it bought 4,603 BTC at an average price of $80,318. That's a buy of roughly $370 million, and brings Strategy's bitcoin stocks to 845,050 BTC at an average price of $75,412. Bitcoin turned positive on the news, and is now nominally higher at $78,585. That leaves Strategy's stockpile in the black by $2.68 billion, after sagging bitcoin prices put the inventory into a hole of $10 to $15 billion earlier this year. Strategy's last reported bitcoin purchase was on June 22, according to data from the company. Since then, a number of sales were reported, with nearly 7,000 BTC sold. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
1210 ET - Prediction market exchange Kalshi has filed a new proposal to the CFTC to allow for the implementation of FX perpetual futures. These would include perp contracts for the USD and euro, adding for Kalshi's stable of available perp contracts. "The FX market is the largest financial trading market in the world," says a spokesperson for Kalshi in a note. "BIS's latest comprehensive survey found $9.6 trillion of average daily FX turnover in April 2025, up 28% from $7.5T/day in 2022." Kalshi has been the target of litigation challenging prediction markets, contending that they're just gambling with investment-sounding terminology. "[We have] supported state efforts to protect consumers from unregulated gambling from the get-go," says CFTC watchdog Better Markets in a note Friday. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
1202 ET - SLB's acquisition of Kelvion adds scale and breadth to its data-center business strategy, Melius Research analysts James West and Sanskriti Reddy say. The deal is expected to double SLB's revenue opportunity per gigawatt of delivered capacity. SLB's business was already on track to hit a $2 billion revenue run-rate or more by the end of 2027, the analysts say. Kelvion adds $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion of data center revenue alone, they note. SLB now anticipates data center revenue will be $4.5 billion to $5 billion, which the analysts say is roughly 10% of total company revenue. Shares are up 2.6%. (katherine.hamilton@wsj.com)
1159 ET - A streak of investor capital coming back into bitcoin ETFs was snapped on Friday, according to data from CoinGlass. An outflow of $201.9 million was recorded for bitcoin ETFs on Aug. 28, breaking a two-week streak of inflows into those ETFs. ETF activity has been an indicator of institutional investor interest in cryptocurrencies, which has been low through the first-half of the year as money flowed into more lucrative assets like AI and semiconductor stocks. Investor risk appetite has since changed, making assets like bitcoin and gold more attractive to institutional money - although bitcoin appears to have found resistance around the $80,000 mark. It's down 0.1% to $78,530. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
1123 ET - Algonquin Power & Utilities' sale of its stake in Chilean water utility Suralis to Toesca for $126.5 million is a positive step toward streamlining its geographic footprint. Scotiabank's Robert Hope says the sale of its 64% stake supports "management's ongoing focus on its core U.S.-regulated utility operations." While the business represented about 4% of Algonquin's revenue, the analyst estimates the effects on EPS to be "neutral." It does, however, improve Algonquin's credit metrics, he adds. Hope thinks this might be the first of a number of other noncore divestitures, including "Bermuda utility (BELCO - $525m rate base) and smaller water utilities." (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)
1110 ET - Ethereum has posted big gains in the latter-half of the summer, but it appears that the cryptocurrency has found stiff resistance at the $2,500-mark. It's being viewed as a key test for if the rallying seen in ethereum - which has gained nearly 30% in the past week-and-a-half alone - has any more room to run. "A successful move could fuel further upside, otherwise Ethereum may need to consolidate its recent gains," says Bret Kenwell of eToro in a note. Traders appear to be embracing consolidation today. Ethereum is down 1% to $2,467, while bitcoin falls 0.2% to $78,457, XRP is down 1.5% to $1.38, and solana falls 1.2% to $103.47. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)
1059 ET - Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" has been a game changer for IMAX, Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey says in a research note. The film's IMAX cumulative total box office gross has reached nearly $450 million, an unprecedented figure that will likely continue to climb after the movie is released in Japan next month, he continues. "'The Odyssey' should support what we expect to be an exceptionally strong 3Q26 for IMAX," Hickey says. "More importantly, we believe the film's success could rewire filmmaker and studio behavior by demonstrating the commercial value of designing and shooting major event films for IMAX." The movie's IMAX performance could be transformative to the company's long-term positioning and growth potential, especially after WSJ reported in May that IMAX was exploring a sale. IMAX is up 77% over the past 12 months. (connor.hart@wsj.com)
1051 ET - Dubai leads most major Gulf stock markets lower as renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran adds to geopolitical uncertainty in the region. U.S. forces attacked two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, marking the first American strike on Iran in weeks. The Dubai Financial Market General Index falls 0.8%, Qatar's QE Index drops 0.6%, Abu Dhabi's benchmark index declines 0.4% and Saudi Arabia's Tadawul All Share Index falls 0.3%. (farhan.rafid@wsj.com)
1032 ET - Germany's governing coalition could see its room for maneuver squeezed by a weak performance in coming regional elections, Alexander Valentin at Oxford Economics warns. The far-right AfD is projected to make gains at elections in three states in Europe's most important economy in September, possibly winning a majority in at least one. That move away from the center dominated by the ruling coalition could spread to other, larger states voting next year, Valentin writes in a note. "We see an increasing risk of a political stalemate at the national level that would derail necessary reforms and could prompt us to revise Germany's potential growth downwards," he says. (joshua.kirby@wsj.com; @joshualeokirby)
1011 ET - Canadian energy stocks lead the few gainers on the TSX after flare ups of fighting in the Middle East push oil prices higher. Crude oil is up 3% following U.S. strikes on Iranian rocket launch sites in the Strait of Hormuz. The higher price lifts Canada's major oil producers, with Vermilion Energy, Athabasca Oil, Strathcona Resources, Suncor and Cenovus among the top performs, rising 3.5%, 2.4%, 1.7%, 2.6% and 2.6%, respectively. The energy sector has experienced volatile trading in recent weeks as crude prices swing on shifting geopolitical tensions in the key oil-producing and exporting region. (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)
0945 ET - Capstone Copper's completed acquisition of the copper assets at the San Pietro copper-gold-iron-cobalt project adds scale to its Mantoverde-Santo Domingo District at a good price. TD Cowen's Craig Hutchison notes that the district now encompasses about 60,000 hectares, of which San Pietro makes up about 27%. The addition adds a "considerable resource base" of about 4.4 billion pounds of copper and 770,000 ounces of gold. At the $25 million transaction price in Capstone shares, Hutchison calculates that Capstone paid less than a cent per pound for the copper resources alone, excluding by-product credits. The analyst says that while the transaction is accretive on its own merits, there is more upside from consolidated district control, exploration potential and district synergies.
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