The latest Market Talks covering Equities. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires throughout the day.
1811 ET - Australian stocks look set to extend their losses in early trade and stay on course for a third straight weekly decline. Local stock futures are down by 0.1% ahead of Friday's session, suggesting that the S&P/ASX 200 will follow U.S. equities lower amid continued worries about the impact of the Iran conflict on the global economy. The Australian benchmark index is coming off a 1.7% drop and is 1.4% lower so far this week. It has dropped 7.6% in March. Ahead of the open, retailer Premier Investments restored its interim dividend and flagged turnaround plans for its Smiggle stationery business. In the U.S., the DJIA slipped 0.4%, the S&P 500 fell 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3%.(stuart.condie@wsj.com)
1809 ET - Australian transport stocks are likely to trade on a near-term discount because of concerns around diesel availability, Ord Minnett says. It notes some 2.7 billion liters of diesel are consumed in the country each month. "An arbitrary 1% increase in the market risk premium due to fuel supply issues would (all else equal) reduce discounted cash flow valuations by 11.2% for Qube, 11.4% for Freightways, 15.2% for Mainfreight and 15.2% for Lindsay Australia," analyst Ian Munro says. Australia's supply of diesel is heavily concentrated in Asia. South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Brunei account for nearly 80% of imported diesel. "We note that these countries are heavy refining countries, with a heavy exposure to the Middle East for their crude supplies," Ord Minnett says. (david.winning@wsj.com; @dwinningWSJ)
1806 ET - Sigma Healthcare's share price recently dropped to a more than one-year low, leading Jefferies to turn bullish on the pharmacy owner's stock. Analyst David Stanton says Sigma is a high-quality retail franchise. "We expect growth to continue, notwithstanding moderating impact from GLP-1 sales in 2H FY26," Jefferies says. It expects Sigma's profit margins to expand more. That's due to increased volumes off a fixed-cost base and ongoing growth in higher-margin generic drugs. Jefferies also expects Sigma to make improvements in its wholesaling business. It upgrades Sigma to buy, from hold. Sigma ended Thursday at A$2.66, below Jefferies's A$3.05/share price target. (david.winning@wsj.com; @dwinningWSJ)
1802 ET - Higher fuel prices and scarcity due to the conflict in Iran could affect the 2H26 production and FY27 guidance targets of Australia's gold miners, says Ord Minnett. Feedback so far is that it's had little impact. Ord Minnett notes that miners typically have at least six weeks of fuel supply socked away as a contingency. Analyst Paul Kaner says diesel accounted for 2-15% of gold miners' costs before the conflict began. So, Ord Minnett "is not anticipating material changes to outlooks but flag it as a key inflationary risk/productivity risk should the Strait of Hormuz remain shut for an extended period." Ord Minnett says some miners are more protected from rising fuel costs, such as Evolution Mining, than others. It puts St Barbara in the latter camp. (david.winning@wsj.com; @dwinningWSJ)
1759 ET - Canaccord Genuity lowers its target on Boss Energy after the uranium miner's mineral resource update, showing more resources but lower grades at the Gould's Dam and Jason's deposits. "Clearly these satellite deposits, like East Kalkaroo, lack continuous high-grade mineralization," the broker says. It cuts its target to A$2.55 from A$2.80. The broker keeps a speculative buy rating. Boss Energy ended Thursday down 6.8% at A$1.52. (rhiannon.hoyle@wsj.com; @RhiannonHoyle)
1756 ET - Modern warfare's shift toward drones leads Jefferies to start coverage of DroneShield. The company makes Counter Uncrewed Aerial Systems, or C-UAS, which are popular with militaries seeking to bolster their defenses. Analyst William Richardson points out that NATO has committed to 1.5% of GDP by 2035 to protect infrastructure, networks and other items which would include C-UAS. He sees little risk of prime defense contractors, such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, competing in counter-drone technology. Still, Jefferies says it's unsure about the long-term effectiveness of DroneShield's radio frequency tech in the context of rapidly evolving UAS technology. Jefferies starts coverage of DroneShield with a hold call and A$3.70/share price target. DroneShield ended Thursday at A$4.21. (david.winning@wsj.com; @dwinningWSJ)
1754 ET - FiscalNote Holdings is the most recent company to reference artificial intelligence as it announces widespread layoffs. The company says that it will cut 25% of its workforce as it leverages AI automation and offshoring to cut costs. Earlier this month, Atlassian said it would cut 10% of its staff, citing the need to adapt to AI. And Block said in February that it would slash nearly half of its workforce as it moves to automate more labor with AI. The string of announcements comes amid growing concerns about the role of human workers in an economy increasingly run on AI tools and agents. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)
1747 ET - Australian consumers are buying more China-made cars and Eagers Automotive is well-placed to benefit from this trend, says Jefferies. Chinese cars now account for 20% of new vehicle sales in Australia, up from 10% in 2024. Analyst John Campbell says Eagers is less reliant than other dealers on selling cars made in Europe and North America, which he expects will continue to lose market share. "We also believe that Eagers being (well) overindexed to BYD and to a less extent Chery is extremely positive," Jefferies says. It retains a buy call and A$29.50/share price target on Eagers, which ended Thursday at A$20.09. (david.winning@wsj.com; @dwinningWSJ)
1717 ET - A public venture fund, whose top holdings include Anthropic, Databricks and OpenAI, saw shares surge on its first day of trading. Fundrise Innovation Fund listed its shares under the ticker VCX on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. The company's shares opened at $31.25, reached an intraday high of $128, and closed at $76.16 a share. The trading price compares to a Net Asset Value of the fund of $18.97 per share. "It seems the market was excited about VCX and our mission to democratize access to the best private tech companies," said Benjamin Miller, chief executive of Fundrise. (yuliya.chernova@wsj.com; @ychernova)
1651 ET - FedEx shipped more packages and squeezed more revenue from each shipment in the third quarter. The Memphis, Tenn., company shipped an average of 18.5 million packages a day, a 3% increase from the year before. The average revenue per package increased 6%. Total package revenue jumped 10% to $19.4 billion, thanks in part to a 10% jump in U.S. sales. The strong shipping numbers come as FedEx is spinning off its Freight business and executing a turnaround plan to cut costs. Shares gain 8.5% after hours. (katherine.hamilton@wsj.com)
1618 ET - The secondary market for private market-fund stakes, long seen as a last resort for investors in need of liquidity, now benefits from "several long-term factors," Matt Swain, global co-head of equity capital solutions at investment bank Houlihan Lokey, says in a report. "These include the spread of secondaries as an investment management tool" to strategies beyond buyouts, such as credit and infrastructure, he says. He also cites "inflows of new money from both institutional investors and retail investors" into secondary-focused funds. Also, a survey Houlihan conducted with buyers and sellers in secondary markets shows that only 4% of respondents expect prices to decline this year. "The [survey] indicates that current pricing is in a healthy place, with a good supply of everything from top-quality assets to long-in-the-tooth tail ends," Swain says. (luis.garcia@wsj.com; @lhvgarcia)
1605 ET - U.S. stock averages end lower, but well above their worst levels of the session, after President Trump says he wouldn't "put troops anywhere" when asked about moving forces toward Iran. U.S. WTI oil edges higher after sinking earlier in the day as the latest round of attacks on energy facilities fed fears of a wider energy crisis. Materials are the weakest sector as precious metals continue to decline, while energy stocks rise the most. DJIA falls 203 points, or 0.4%, to 46021, the S&P 500 loses 0.3% to 6606 and the Nasdaq slips 0.3% to 22090. (patrick.sullivan@wsj.com)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2026 18:11 ET (22:11 GMT)
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