The latest Market Talks covering Equities. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires throughout the day.
1659 ET - Kalshi is beefing up its Midterm Hub in advance of the U.S. midterm elections next month. The prediction-markets platform rolls out a feature called "My Ballot," which draws on Ballotpedia data to show users the races on their ballot, along with their corresponding Kalshi markets. Kalshi says this feature will help educate voters, combat polarization and boost awareness around lower-profile downballot races, adding that upwards of 80% of people who visit the Midterms Hub don't trade. "Markets are an antidote to partisan misinformation," Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour says. "Adding Ballotpedia's nonpartisan ballot information will make our product even stronger." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1550 ET - Oil futures end the session mixed with Brent modestly lower while WTI gains on bullish inventory data and reports that the U.S. could ease some sanctions on tankers that form part of shadow fleets. The EIA reports an 8.6 million-barrel drop in crude stocks for last week, along with a 2.5 million-barrel diesel draw and a 3.5 million-barrel rise in gasoline stocks. "Consumers might get some relief at the pump with gasoline prices, but the tight diesel situation keeps pressure on costs and inflation in the broader economy," David Russell of TradeStation says in a note. WTI for November delivery rises 3%, to $97.97 a barrel, and December Brent slips 0.1%, to $105.92. (anthony.harrup@wsj.com)
1442 ET - Major Gulf stock markets end lower Thursday, with Qatar's QE Index leading declines, falling 1.4%, followed by Dubai's benchmark index, which loses 1.1%. Saudi Arabia's Tadawul All Share Index slips 0.3%, while Abu Dhabi's benchmark sheds 0.3%. The declines come against a backdrop of sustained foreign selling across regional equities. Foreign investors sold a net $2.3 billion in Gulf stocks during the third quarter, the largest quarterly outflow in Kamco Invest's records dating back to 2019. Saudi Arabia accounted for $1.5 billion of the selling, followed by Dubai at $414.3 million, while Qatar was the only Gulf market to record net foreign buying during the quarter, the investment firm says. (farhan.rafid@wsj.com)
1339 ET - Deutsche Bank analysts see a buying opportunity in the recent selloff of CoreWeave. It appears as though the move was being driven broadly by changing AI financing sentiment, with no obvious company-specific factors and a supportive backdrop of AI infrastructure demand. "If this is purely about broader AI financing concerns we'd argue CoreWeave continues to scale rather responsibly," the analysts say in a note, observing that the company has solid near-term liquidity, good partnerships, and pricing and margin power. "A strong customer base, established record of execution, backlog conversion and leading infrastructure performance is all supportive of their issuer profile relative to neocloud peers, in our view," the analysts say. CoreWeave shares are now up 2.3% but down 18% this week. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1308 ET--Walmart is well positioned heading into 2027, Deutsche Bank analysts say in a research note. For starters, sticky inflation should reinforce the retailer's value proposition, helping to accelerate market share gains, the analysts say. At the same time, they expect incremental margins to improve, as higher-margin businesses continue to scale and as automation benefits increasingly flow through the P&L. "Taken together, we see pricing tailwinds building, market share accelerating, and Walmart's flywheel strengthening, while greater disclosure around GMV could increasingly underscore the evolution from traditional retailer to technology-led marketplace," the analysts write. Deutsche upgrades Walmart to buy from hold, and raises its price target to $136 from $113. Walmart shares are up 2.2%. (connor.hart@wsj.com)
1302 ET - An apparent deceleration in Anthropic's revenue growth for the first three quarters of the year, as reported by WSJ and Financial Times, shouldn't be taken as a signal of faltering AI demand, D.A. Davidson's Gil Luria and Turner Dischinger say in a note. The slowdown may reflect OpenAI catching up as "this was the breakout quarter for open weight models," as well as growing use of open-weight models for less intensive or critical tasks. Though businesses are diversifying away from the two AI heavyweights, overall AI spending seems to be continuing on a steep upward trajectory, the analysts say. "This overall demand should support more AI compute demand and more data center construction, even if it doesn't meet the most outlandish extrapolations." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1249 ET - Brunello Cucinelli looks favorably disconnected from the wider luxury-fashion sector, Bernstein says. The Italian fashion house, known for its cashmere, bucked weak trends elsewhere in luxury with a 13.5% rise in third-quarter sales, lifting its 2026 expectations on the back of that impetus. "The disconnect with the sector is felt particularly when looking at growth by geography, which was driven by the Americas and China where they are welcoming new customers to the brand," Bernstein notes. (joshua.kirby@wsj.com; @joshualeokirby)
1242 ET - Brunello Cucinelli has once again shown itself resilient in the face of macroeconomic pressures, analysts Nikolaos Lafioniatis and Piral Dadhania at RBC Capital Markets write in a note. The Italian luxury-fashion house nudged up its sales views for the year after growth picked up pace in the third quarter, driven by a strong retail performance. That momentum places Cucinelli toward the top of the luxury peer group, Lafioniatis and Dadhania say. "Overall, a strong print for Brunello Cucinelli...re-confirming resilience," they say. (joshua.kirby@wsj.com; @joshualeokirby)
1129 ET - The artificial-intelligence investment boom increasingly looks like it will struggle to generate sufficient returns, Panmure Liberum strategist Joachim Klement says. "We are seeing some blocks being pulled out of the Jenga Tower that is the AI capex boom," Klement says. "Higher debt costs makes it extremely difficult for neoclouds and hyperscalers to finance further data centers now that their free cash flows have evaporated." For instance, cloud-computing company CoreWeave saw its cost of borrowing soar over the past two sessions as shares in chip makers and data center companies are falling sharply across the globe. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index pares losses to fall 1.7% Thursday, though the index remains on track to extend its losing run to seven days--its longest losing streak since May 2025. (josephmichael.stonor@wsj.com)
1116 ET - Bombardier's fundamentals are strong and a recent pullback has brought the stock to an attractive level, according to Cameron Doerksen of National Bank of Canada. The analyst says that the company has a healthy backlog of $21.8 billion, with new jet order activity still robust going into 3Q. The jet maker is expected to show "solid aftermarket growth while the Defense segment backdrop remains highly positive." Doerksen raises the stock's rating to outperform from sector perform, but lowers the price target to C$360 from C$379. Shares are trading 4% higher at C$301.50, and are up 29% year-to-date.(adriano.marchese@wsj.com)
1110 ET - Ramp is eyeing an initial public offering, but isn't in a rush, Chief Executive Eric Glyman says on CNBC. An IPO "will be in the coming years," Glyman says. However, he says he isn't trying to time the IPO with market dynamics. Glyman says he is focused on increasing Ramp's value right now and wants the company's financials to be fully in place before looking into going public. In the meantime, Glyman says he is interested to see how Anthropic's IPO goes.(katherine.hamilton@wsj.com)
1108 ET - The business model of neocloud companies--providers of additional artificial-intelligence computing power--is worrying, Amati Global Investors' Mikhail Zverev says. The neocloud companies' business is based upon a duration mismatch in which they "build long-duration assets backed by shorter-duration leases," Zverev says. The sector is populated by young businesses that aren't very secure, the fund manager adds. Zverev also flags the risk posed by so-called circular financing, in which neocloud companies buy hardware from the same AI companies that fund them. Neocloud group CoreWeave's shares are under pressure as investors raise concerns about its borrowing costs. "We're not surprised that CoreWeave is having a bit of a moment," Zverev says. CoreWeave shares fall 4.7%.
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