Live markets: ASX falls for second day in a row, Wall Street closes lower

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The Australian share market could start the day slightly lower, with ASX futures down 0.2%.

This will be the second day in a row that the market has fallen, after yesterday’s inflation data showed that core inflation (at 3.5%) is still too high for the Reserve Bank to start cutting interest rates any time soon.

Money markets are now betting that there is about a 20% chance of an interest rate cut by Christmas (which is quite low).

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Bank is no longer expecting a rate cut in December. It was the only major bank to make such a forecast.

Following yesterday’s inflation data, he now expects the RBA to start cutting rates in February (essentially in line with Westpac, NAB and ANZ, who are also betting for the month).

The Australian dollar recovered slightly to 65.75 US cents, near a three-month low.

Wall Street closed lower

This came after a weak session on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 0.2% to 42,142 and the S&The P500 fell 0.3% to 5,814.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index lost 0.6% to 18,608, retreating from yesterday’s record high.

Shares of Google parent Alphabet jumped 2.9% after the company reported better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by growth in its cloud business and YouTube ad sales.

Economic data shows the US economy is growing slower than expected. In the third quarter, GDP grew 2.8% (slightly below economists’ forecasts of 3% growth).

Meanwhile, the US labor market remains strong, with a report showing US private sector payrolls grew by a stronger-than-expected 233,000 jobs in October.