McMillan Shakespeare shares reached as low as $11.95 today but are now at $12.33, down 8 per cent, after analysts at Macquarie and Evans & Partners cut their ratings following yesterday's market update and earnings downgrade.

Meanwhile Citi Research analysts have maintained their 'buy' rating but lower their estimates for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation down by 8.3 per cent to $121.4 million. They expect post-tax profit to be at the higher end of the revised guidance at $89 million. Citi's buy rating remains because the analysts were pessimistic about McMillan's bid for Eclipx, which lapsed several weeks ago.

"McMillan Shakespeare's announcement is evidence of the cyclical headwinds noted in the new car market (14 months of consecutive declines). Novated leasing businesses, while still cyclical, have historically out-performed corporate fleet businesses and remain our preferred exposures into the auto leasing category," the team led by Ross Barrows writes.

"We are hopeful of improved conditions in the first half of 2019-20 from a cyclical improvement and increased consumer sentiment and visibility post the federal election."

The S&P/ASX200 is losing a little bit of momentum and is heading down from 6570 points at 2.45pm to 6560 points now.

QBE Insurance is still dragging the most points away with a 3 per cent drop to $11.93 and Boral is down 2.9 per cent to $5.22. Australia and New Zealand bank is down 0.5 per cent to $28.15.

Out of the 200 companies in the index 124 are higher while 72 are lower. The biggest fall is McMillanShakespeare, down 8.5 per cent to $12.21. Meanwhile Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals is up 6.2 per cent ahead of its entry to the S&P/ASX200 index on Friday.

The Australian dollar has hit its lowest value gainst the greenback since March 2009 after the Reserve Bank Board's minutes were released. The dollar dropped from US68.57 to US68.33 around 2pm. Economists have interpreted the minutes as suggesting at least two more rate cuts are likely, or even unconventional stimulus.

The Australian dollar has been under pressure since April 15 and today dropped below its 2016 low of US68.46 cents.

Vocus director Matthew Hanning made an astute purchase yesterday, snapping up 59,000 Vocus shares at $3.06 apiece. The stock closed at $4.36 on Friday, but dropped 30 per cent to $3.05 at opening on Monday after AGL announced it was not proceeding with a $3 billion takeover offer.

Former Clayton Utz partner, and Morgan Stanley and UBS employee, Mr Hanning quickly found $180,600 to buy shares, which were trading under $3.10 until $12.45pm. Vocus shares closed at $3.29 yesterday and are trading slightly higher at $3.30 today.

Meanwhile Macquarie analyst believe the share price will take a while to recover and rate the company "neutral".

"Given the rapid terminations of two successive due diligence processes, we see it as unlikely that Vocus will field other approaches any time soon and the focus will return to the operating outlook and transformation ambitions for the business. As such, we reduce our target price from A$4.50 per share to A$3.25 per share," the wrote in a note to clients today.

Morgans analyst Richard Coles released a note yesterday putting a 5 per cent valuation discount on Afterpay due to "AUSTRAC risks", saying the stock's 20 per cent fall since the AUSTRAC audit was announced has already factored in enough risk. He has an "add" rating with a $23.43 target price down from $25.96. The recent capital raising reduces earnings per share by about 6 per cent to -2.6 cents this year and 20.1 cents in 2019-20.

Afterpay has to deliver an external audit report within 120 days in relation to its anti-money laundering compliance, customer identification due diligence, and suspicious matter reporting.

"While the audit is negative for Afterpay, it remains hard to gauge the operational or financial implications," Mr Coles wrote. "At this point, we do not know the number of contraventions of the Act, nor how the number of possible contraventions could be categorised." Afterpay is currently 6.4 per cent higher at $21.57.

Economists have started released their notes on the Reserve Bank Board minutes.

UBS's George Tharenou says the RBA's GDP forecasts "are still too optimistic" and likely to be downgraded again in their August statement on monetary policy.

"This matters because the RBA now thinks the economy can "sustain a lower rate of unemployment than previously estimated", and recently revised its non-accelerating-inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) to 4.4 per cent (from 5 per cent)," he writes.

"Importantly RBA [Jonathan] Kearns' comments today that "arrears rates should not rise to levels that pose a risk to the financial system", "so long as unemployment remains low", suggest that if unemployment were to rise more than we currently expect, it would raise the risk of more and earlier easing," Mr Tharenou wrote in a note to clients. UBS expects to see two more cuts in the target cash rate of 25 basis points in August and then in February, "but there is a risk of more and earlier easing, especially if trade wars escalate".

Clive Palmer's relentless election advertising spending has clouded media data because it was not booked through agencies. Metropolitan television bookings were down 1.9 per cent in May (excluding government ads), year on year, but would be higher if Mr Palmer's spending is included.

Federal election advertising added $26 million to the spend, but other groups held back during the election. Car ad spending is down 13 per cent, bank ad spends are down 31 per cent, and retail is down 7 per cent.

Ad bookings on regional networks increased 5.7 per cent, and metropolitan radio bookings increased 9.5 per cent and is the only category to increase this calendar year. However, newspaper ad bookings decreased 16 per cent and outdoor bookings dropped 10.3 per cent.

Afterpay Touch dropped 6.1 per cent yesterday to $20.27, coinciding with media reports about anti-money laundering agency AUSTRAC's concerns about exploitability. Today the stock is up 7.5 per cent to $21.84.

Meanwhile the S&P/ASX has gotten a boost in the past hour and is now higher at 6564, a gain of 33.5 points.

Commonwealth Bank has moved higher in that period and is now up 1.1 per cent to $81.12, and CSL is up 1.8 per cent to $215.45. Wesfarmers and Coles are both higher, and Goodman Group is also adding points.

The biggest drag on the index at the moment is QBE Insurance and Australian and New Zealand Bank. a2 Milk is down 2.7 per cent to $13.49.

Corporate raider and majority shareholder of Mercantile Investment Company, Sir Ron Brierley, has completed a merger with Sandon Capital, first announced on 6 June.

Sir Brierley has swapped 53 million shares in Mercantile, 18 per cent, for 11 million shares, or 18.9 per cent, of Sandon Captial. The deal was announced two weeks ago when Sir Brierley revealed he was stepping back from work commitments due to illhealth. He still holds 25 per cent of Mercantile.

The Reserve Bank of Australia's minutes are out and there are a few interesting comments suggesting the board expects very low inflation for some time.

• Firstly members "recognised that many older Australians rely on interest income, which would decline with lower interest rates", but the overall net effect of lower interest rates was nevertheless expected to boost aggregate household disposable income.
• "The unemployment rate was expected to decline a little towards the end of the forecast period, and underlying inflation was expected to pick up gradually, to be at the lower end of the target range in the next couple of years."
• "Members recognised that Australia's flexible inflation targeting framework did not require inflation to be within the target range at all times".