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

2011 ET - Japanese stocks are higher in early trade after a fall in crude oil prices amid eased fears about Middle Eastern supplies. Chip-related stocks are leading the gains. Lasertec is up 5.3% and Advantest is 3.9% higher. The dollar is at 156.15 yen, compared with Y155.58 as of Thursday's Tokyo stock market close. Investors are closely watching developments in the Iran conflict and the Bank of Japan's rate decision later Friday. The Nikkei Stock Average is up 0.8% at 64646.49. (kosaku.narioka@wsj.com; @kosakunarioka)

1950 ET - Japanese stocks might rise as crude oil declined overnight amid easing concerns about Middle Eastern supplies. Nikkei futures are up 0.9% at 64795 on the SGX. The dollar is at 156.03 yen, compared with Y155.58 as of Thursday's Tokyo stock market close. Investors are focusing on developments in the Iran conflict as well as the Bank of Japan's rate decision due later Friday. The Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.3% to 64136.25 on Thursday. (kosaku.narioka@wsj.com)

1916 ET - Australian stocks look set to rise at the open, following a positive lead by major U.S. indices. ASX futures are up by 0.5% ahead of Friday's session, suggesting that the S&P/ASX 200 will extend its rally from a three-month earlier this week. The benchmark index added 0.7% across the past two sessions but remains 0.1% lower so far this week, putting it on track for a third straight weekly decline. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posted their biggest one-day gains in six weeks on a rally by technology stocks. The Nasdaq gained 1.7%, the S&P 500 rose 1.1%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6% as investors temporarily set aside worries over rising interest rates and inflation. (stuart.condie@wsj.com)

1700 ET - The Federal Reserve raising interest rates by a quarter of a point will have more of an impact on regional banks than big global ones, UBS analysts say in a research note. Shareholders are going to be keenly focused on deposit growth and pricing dynamics at regional banks, which are underperforming the bigger banks, the analysts say. Even with no discernable shift in tone on deposit competition at this week's global bank conference, banks are expected to have higher deposit costs in 3Q from having to pay customers higher interest on their savings, they say. The analysts have preferred major global banks to regionals all year and the rate outlook supports that stance, they say. (dean.seal@wsj.com)

1649 ET - Rising secondary deal activity involving private market-fund stakes is driving the establishment of strategies to focus on specific asset classes such as private credit and infrastructure, as opposed to the generalist secondary funds that investment firms favored in the past, according to Christine Patrinos, a partner at Monument Group. She co-leads the Boston-based advisory firm's secondaries team. "In general across the industry we are seeing some more specialization and we expect that to continue," she says during a discussion with reporters. Private-market investor HarbourVest Partners, for one, as of earlier this month had raised $2.4 billion for a new strategy focused on private-credit secondaries. Patrinos adds that large secondary fund managers increasingly are introducing evergreen vehicles tailored to wealthy individuals and that "some of those strategies are also now becoming specialized." (luis.garcia@wsj.com; @lhvgarcia)

1455 ET - In a restaurant industry that's highly promotional, Cava stands out as a player with broad-based strength across the sector, including geographies and income cohorts--with outsized growth among lower-income customers, according to William Blair in a note. Analysts Sharon Zackfia and Tania Anderson say customers are flocking to the fast-casual Mediterranean chain for its everyday value, helping it post better-than-expected 9% 2Q comparable sales growth, the majority of which came from a traffic boost. Cava has underpriced inflation since 2019, they add. What's more, they say "new unit productivity remains stellar, with new unit sales at or greater than the systemwide average across all geographies, formats, and markets." They say it suggests Cava has the opportunity to become a much larger brand versus its nearly 480 units today. (kelly.cloonan@wsj.com)

1423 ET - Palantir CEO Alex Karp isn't bullish on the prospect of President Trump and President Xi agreeing on shared AI risks. "I would love it if it happened," Karp says on CNBC. "The problem is, we're tight enough as competitors that both sides believe they could win." He adds that a framework of joint U.S.-China control over AI would "change the world." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

1420 ET - Palantir CEO Alex Karp says the real goal of frontier labs such as Anthropic is likely to get the U.S. government to nationalize their businesses to cap their liability from skimming their customers' intellectual property. Karp, in a CNBC interview, says he respects Anthropic head Dario Amodei, but describes the company's philosophy as one of migrating business customers' IP into its AI models. "That model would require severe liability protection, and there's only one institution that can do that: the U.S. government," Karp says. "First, you migrate all the IP to your business, and then, because you need capped liability, both vis-a-vis the business and vis-a-vis the dangers, you've got to migrate the business to the government. It has to be nationalized." (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

1313 ET - There needs to be a set of reasonable and enforceable guidelines for increasingly-capable AI models, beginning with liability for the companies that provide them, Palantir CEO Alex Karp says on CNBC. "The first line of defense is, you're liable for your own actions," Karp says. Of the AI companies asking for government intervention, Karp adds, "they're asking for societal regulation to get out of the first line of defense, which is, if you build a technology that can destroy 10% of the world, that has civil and criminal liability attached to it." He adds that regulating AI proves tricky, as many of the people who understand the technology best are on its payroll. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

1229 ET - ChatGPT developer OpenAI's selection of Shopify as its debut ecommerce advertising partner eases fears of AI disintermediation, says TD Cowen's John Shao. In a report, the analyst notes a prevalent theme weighing on ecommerce sentiment this year has been of fears of cutting out the middleman. This was made worse for Shopify after META announced its personal AI assistants. However, Shao sees OpenAI's new ad integration as evidence that "Shopify may be becoming more deeply embedded in agentic commerce rather than being bypassed by it." Under the partnership, merchants can manage ChatGPT advertising campaigns directly through the Shopify platform. This sets up Shopify to benefit from "the infrastructure layer underpinning AI-driven commerce rather than being at risk of displacement." (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)

1214 ET - The late-summer rebound in bitcoin hit a wall in trying to stay above the $80k mark, but the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike isn't expected to be the catalyst that holds bitcoin prices back. "We believe yesterday's move was a mid-cycle adjustment, not a cyclical change," says Zack Pandl of Grayscale Research in a note. "And we doubt the one or two rate hikes expected for 2026 will lead to much change in capital allocation." Pandl harkens back to a similar occurrence in March 1997, when Alan Greenspan's Fed "did an analogous one-off hike… and the Nasdaq bull market kept rolling on." Bitcoin is up 0.7% to $76,669. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)

1213 ET - Volvo Car is suffering from intense competition in China, but the Swedish carmaker's chief commercial officer, Erik Severinson, still sees a path for his company to succeed in the world's largest car market in the long run. Sales of premium cars made by Western companies are under pressure in China, while local players are fighting a price war to drive volumes, Severinson says in an interview. "Right now it is very difficult to compete in that market for everyone," he says. Volvo is betting that new models with self-driving and infotainment systems, as well as differentiated interior designs, will make its cars more relevant to Chinese consumers, Severinson says. Volvo Car shares close 0.1% higher.