Good morning! I’ll be here to guide you through the latest business and economic news.
The Australian share market is on track to begin its day marginally lower, with ASX futures down 0.2%.
It would be the second day in a row that the market has fallen, after yesterday’s inflation figures showed underlying inflation (at 3.5%) is still too high for the Reserve Bank to start cutting interest rates soon.
Money markets are now betting there’s a roughly 20% chance of an interest rate cut by Christmas (which is quite low).
Commonwealth Bank, meanwhile, is no longer expecting a December rate cut. It was the only major bank to make that prediction.
After yesterday’s inflation data, it now expects the RBA to start cutting rates in February (essentially falling in line with Westpac, NAB and ANZ, who are also betting on that month).
The Australian dollar recovered slightly to 65.75 US cents (which isn’t far from its three-month low).
It comes after a weak session on Wall Street, which saw the Dow Jones slip 0.2% to 42,142 points, and the S&P 500 decline 0.3% to 5,814.
The tech-driven Nasdaq Composite lost 0.6% to 18,608 points, retreating from yesterday’s record high.
Shares of Google’s parent company Alphabet jumped 2.9% after the company reported quarterly earnings which beat expectations, thanks to the strength of its cloud business and YouTube ad sales.
In economic data, the US economy is growing at a slower-than-expected pace. Third-quarter GDP rose 2.8% (slightly below economists’ forecasts of 3% growth).
Meanwhile, the American labour market remains strong, with a report showing US private payrolls surged by a stronger-than-expected 233,000 jobs in October.