1. The Fair Work Commission has introduced two weeks of pandemic pay for aged care workers who are ill. Unions are lobbying to extend this to all front-line workers.

2. Gold has beaten its 2011 record highs, rising to US$1944 an ounce on Monday, as investors grow fearful of another sharemarket correction. ASX-listed gold miners have benefited, with Silver Lake, Saracen and Evolution in the top 10 S&P/ASX 200 winners of 2020. Newcrest also rose 5% on Monday.

3. Afterpay have spoken out about BNPL rival Klarna (who are part-owned by Commonwealth Bank), saying Klarna's constant checking of user credit files is not responsible lending conduct.

4. Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds travelled to the US yesterday for AUSMIN talks with their US counterparts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark Esper. The AUSMIN discussion will explore Australia's participation in the US naval missions in the Indo-Pacific as well as "concrete cooperation" with US operations in the South China Sea.

5. The ASX is tipped to open higher after Wall Street rose yesterday due to a surge in tech stocks. Amazon.com, Google parent Alphabet and Apple led the major indexes higher, solidifying tech as the best performing sector. The Dow rose 0.43% yesterday to 26,584.77, the S&P 500 jumped 0.74% to 3,239.41, while Nasdaq reaped the gains of tech stocks rising 1.67% to 10,536.27.