The latest Market Talks covering Equities. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires throughout the day.

1918 ET - Ross Stores' latest quarterly results include a $253 million boost from tariff refunds, benefiting earnings per share by about 60 cents. Excluding the refunds, margins still would have expanded, the company says. While other retailers have shared plans to reinvest tariff refunds into lower prices, Ross says it may take a different approach, given its been hesitant to pass through higher costs from tariffs to consumers. "I think a lot of other retailers took a different position in trying to pass that along and maybe now sort of reversing course. We've tried to maintain a little bit more stability," an executive says during a call with analysts. (kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)

1858 ET [Dow Jones]--Super Retail's 15% share-price rise to A$14.45 on Thursday looks overdone to Jefferies. It downgrades Super Retail to underperform, from hold, in response. "We cannot fault execution," says analyst Michael Simotas. He points out that 2H costs were well controlled, strategic inventory buy-in paid off and promotions were effective. "However, environment is tough, with high interest rates, falling property values and elevated fuel price," Jefferies says. Rebel benefited from World Cup soccer, which sets a high bar for sales next time around. Also, positive recent trading for Supercheap Auto was likely boosted by an effective lubricants promotion, which ran earlier than usual. Jefferies raises its price target on Super Retail by 2.1% to A$12.25/share. (david.winning@wsj.com; @dwinningWSJ)

1801 ET - Australia's S&P/ASX 200 looks set to resume its recent slide in early trade, following a weak lead from U.S. equities. ASX futures are down by 0.4% ahead of Friday's session, suggesting that the benchmark index is on track for a seventh decline in eight sessions. The ASX 200 rose 0.3% Thursday, snapping its longest losing streak since April amid strength in shares of iron-ore and gold miners. Ahead of the open, gold miner Regis Resources declared a special dividend and a record annual profit. Other companies set to report earnings Friday include TPG Telecom. U.S. stocks fell as bond yields rebounded. The DJIA fell 1.3%, the S&P 500 slipped 0.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.0%. (stuart.condie@wsj.com)

1502 ET - Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is optimistic that the Clarity Act, crypto-friendly legislation that's still working its way through the Senate, will get passed with more than 60 votes. Democrats and Republicans both got "90% or so" of what they want in the bill proposal, Armstrong tells CNBC. "In any deal I've been a part of, you say yes to that deal," Armstrong says. Senate majority leader John Thune scheduled a floor vote on the bill for Sept. 15. "[Thune] would not have scheduled this on Sept. 15 if he didn't think it would pass," Armstrong says. (dean.seal@wsj.com)

1447 ET - The chief of Coinbase says it will be up to Congress and the White House to solve the large looming ethics question about the Trump family's financial interest in bolstering the crypto industry. The president has offered to put language in the Clarity Act, crypto-friendly legislation that Trump supports but has stalled in Congress, that would address some of the open ethical issues at hand, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tells CNBC. Among potential solves are the president moving his funds into a blind trust. But the ethical challenges shouldn't derail the Clarity Act, Armstrong says. "We should not leave the status quo and leave Americans unprotected in a morass of state legislation to operate in the U.S., that's just going to ensure this all goes offshore." (dean.seal@wsj.com)

1415 ET - Dollarama continues to benefit from value-seeking Canadians, but National Bank of Canada's Vishal Shreedhar expects that momentum to moderate slightly in 2Q. In a report, the analyst says he expects sequentially lower same-store sales growth in 2Q to 4.1% from 1Q's 5.6%, "largely reflects normalizing traffic patterns following a weather related recovery, partly offset by continued value-seeking behaviour." Still, he sees Canadians coming in more often and buying more, projecting "basket growth of 2.1% and transaction growth of 2.0% y/y." (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)

1401 ET - Transcontinental is entering an operational inflection point, according to TD Cowen's Sean Steuart, who expects a 3Q rebound to break a sluggish first half trend. The analyst projects sequential improvement in 2H, driven by "seasonal tailwinds for the Books & Education segment (H2-weighted) and improved in-store marketing contributions." Following a slow start to the year marked by tough comparisons and lower traditional print volumes, he expects year-over-year adjusted Ebitda growth to resume, rising 5% in 3Q to C$61.2 million and adjusted EPS of C$0.40. What's more, Steuart thinks that the market is underestimating Transcontinental's balance sheet deleveraging, supported by noncore asset sales and strong projected free cash flow yields of 18%. (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)

1353 ET - Jack in the Box named Taylor Montgomery, Taco Bell's chief brand officer, to the role of president with plans for Montgomery to ultimately become chief executive. At Taco Bell, Montgomery oversaw marketing, which TD Cowen analysts say they see as the brand's core competency. "We expect Mr. Montgomery to bring this creative mindset to Jack and restore the brand's marketing & menu innovation muscle," the analysts say. Still, they back their hold rating on Jack's stock given years of underperformance. "Meanwhile, the deficient state of quick service burger and the lower income consumer do not provide tailwinds," they say.(kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)

1259 ET - Micron Technology's new research initiative aims to help the U.S. get a competitive edge in semiconductor and memory innovation, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra says. The semiconductor company's Micron Research Labs will be headquartered in Boise with satellite campuses around the globe, and bring together a number of stakeholders--including customers, academia, government and the broader semiconductor ecosystem--to pursue breakthroughs in memory and AI, he says. The initiative will be "driving America's leadership in semiconductor and memory technology," he says during an appearance on CNBC. The labs will be backed by a planned $10 billion investment over the next decade, the company says. (kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)

1254 ET - Micron Technology is launching a research institution that will focus on areas like critical memory technologies, advanced memory and compute architectures -- all of which are crucial to advancing AI, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra says. "This is critically important, because memory is [the] strategic infrastructure of AI," he says during an appearance on CNBC. "Memory absolutely requires higher performance." For AI to get smarter, it needs a greater amount of memory, faster memory and lower-power memory, he says.(kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)

1250 ET - The housing market is still relying heavily on incentives to ink new-home contracts, but the incentives aren't as steep as they were earlier this year. "After increasing for several years, incentive levels have decreased from the first quarter to the second quarter to the third quarter," says Ara Hovnanian, CEO of Hovnanian Enterprises. "This happened even though mortgage rates increased during the quarter." Hovnanian says on a call with analysts that the trend is providing a boost to business, as the homebuilder's gross margins have improved over the past several quarters. (connor.hart@wsj.com)

1226 ET - Hovnanian's quarterly contracts declined about 4%, to 1,359 homes, during the latest quarter. The homebuilder attributes the decline to political and financial volatility during the period, which prompted consumers to be more cautious. "We continue to believe that there is meaningful underlying demand for housing," CEO Ara Hovnanian says on a call with analysts, noting that consumers are researching and touring new homes, just not converting that interest into contracts. "Even with that modest decline, we believe our sales pace remained resilient relative to the broader market backdrop," he adds.