1. US stock market down again
The local stock market is expected to have another downer, after Wall Street had the worst day since June 2020, when the world was in pandemic lockdown.

The Dow Jones sank more than 1,200 points, or nearly 4%, while the S&P 500 lost 4.3%. The Nasdaq Composite dropped a huge 5.2%. Yep, it was the biggest one-day slide for all three averages since June 2020. Why? Well, the US had a worse-than-expected inflation number, so the central bank there looks set for more 0.75% interest rate rises. Stock prices fall when interest rates rise quickly.

2. Will our Reserve Bank keep raising rates?
Will the US inflation number put pressure on our central bank to keep hitting us with 0.5% rate rises as we’ve endured recently? In simple terms, the Reserve Bank does roughly play follow the leader with the number of rate rises, but the size of each increase — 0.5% for us and 0.75% for the US — is different because our inflation rate is lower. If our inflation trends higher, so could our rate rises.

3. So few properties available to rent
If you’re trying unsuccessfully to rent a property, the statistics say you’re not alone, which isn’t good news for rents. The vacancy rate for residential properties to rent is at a 16-year low of only 0.9%. That means less than 1% of properties available in Australia to be rented are vacant, while in Adelaide it’s only 0.4% and in Brisbane, it’s 0.7%, which means rents will keep on rising.

4. Notable broker rating changes
Bloomberg reports some notable rating changes from the major broker analysts:

• Pepper Money Rated New Buy at Barclay Pearce Capital; price target (PT) $3.39
• Scentre Group Rated New Hold at Barclay Pearce Capital
• IDP Education Rated New Underperform at Barclay Pearce Capital
• ALS Cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse; PT $12.60
• Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Raised to Neutral at Goldman
• Coles Group Cut to Sell at Goldman; PT $15.60
• ANZ Bank Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley; PT $26
• Altium Cut to Hold at Bell Potter; PT $40
• Neuren Raised to Speculative Buy at Bell Potter; PT $8.60

5. ASX laggards over last 24 hours