The latest Market Talks covering Equities. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires throughout the day.
1946 ET - Japanese stocks might remain rangebound as uncertainty over the Iran conflict and the Federal Reserve's policy outlook continues. Nikkei futures are flat at 65460 on the SGX. The dollar is at 158.81 yen, compared with Y158.40 as of Thursday's Tokyo stock market close. Investors are closely watching bond yields following gains in U.S. Treasury yields overnight due to rising expectations for further rate increases by the Fed. The Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.8% to 65513.99 on Thursday. (kosaku.narioka@wsj.com)
1755 ET - Australian stocks look set to fall again in early trading amid fighting in the Middle East that pushed U.S. Treasury yields to fresh multiyear highs. ASX futures are down by 0.3% ahead of Friday's open, suggesting that the S&P/ASX 200 will add to its 0.7% decline of the previous session. With economists and traders increasingly expecting global banks to keep raising interest rates, the Australian index is down by 4.1% in September. It is on track for a fourth weekly decline, which would be its worst such streak in 10 months. In the U.S., the DJIA fell 0.3%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed little changed. (stuart.condie@wsj.com)
1847 ET - Costco's emerging channel of artificial-intelligence-fueled commerce is growing at a clip, CFO Gary Millerchip tells investors on a call. "While starting from a low base relative to other channels, AI continues to grow in its influence on how our members are searching for products," he says. "Traffic to our site from AI search grew triple digits for the second consecutive quarter, and continues to show the highest conversion rate of all site traffic." He adds that some of the top items that originate from AI searches are appliances, consumer electronics, and, notably, the Costco membership itself, "indicating that there is a strong positive sentiment around the value of our membership coming from these sources." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1836 ET - Costco is finding success in the Korean beauty products category, Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip tells investors on a call. Health and beauty was among the company's top-performing non-food departments in the fiscal fourth quarter, he says. "Our success in health and beauty is a great example of our buyers identifying global trends and sourcing new items that resonate strongly with our members," Millerchip says. "Some of the best performing items this quarter included K-beauty products such as face masks and lotions from a number of top Korean vendors." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1634 ET - U.S. natural gas futures rise sharply as TC Energy declared force majeure on a pipeline in West Virginia after detecting a leak. Nymex natural gas rose 9.1% to $3.297/mmBtu, its biggest single-day gain since January and highest close in three months. The outage affects an estimated 1.8 Bcf/d of natural gas from Appalachia. Prices were also supported by a sixth straight below-average storage build that reduced the inventory surplus over the five-year average to 95 Bcf from 118 Bcf.(anthony.harrup@wsj.com)
By Anthony Harrup U.S. natural gas futures posted their biggest-single-day gain since January as a pipeline outage Thursday in West Virginia led to supply disruptions.
TC Energy said it detected a natural gas leak at the Saunders Creek Regulator Station in West Virginia around 8:35 a.m. ET and "immediately activated emergency response procedures."
The company said it reduced the pressure of natural gas to isolate the station, and notified customers of delivery impacts. The situation was confined to the Saunders Creek station, TC Energy added.
The outage sent natural gas futures higher, with the October contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange settling up 9.1% at $3.297 per million British thermal units, a three-month high.
Natural gas futures have been gradually rising as a warmer-than-usual September kept up power-sector demand through the tail end of summer, limiting inventory builds. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a 53 billion cubic foot injection into storage for last week, a sixth consecutive below-average build that reduced the surplus over the five-year average to 95 Bcf from 118 Bcf the previous week.
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