1. Gerry Harvey is going to love this one!

Consumers are ignoring recession headlines, with the weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence rating rising by 1.6% to an 8-month high of 99.7. Sure, we’re still less confident than our long-term average of 112.6 but once we get over a reading of 100, it means optimists outnumber pessimists! Confidence has lifted in 10 of the past 11 weeks and is now up 52.7% since hitting record lows of 65.3 on March 29. “The improvement in the Aussie virus backdrop - especially in Melbourne - saw all five major components of the ANZ-Roy Morgan sentiment gauge lift last week,” said CommSec’s Craig James. “In fact, consumer views on ‘current financial conditions’ lifted most - up 3.5 per cent - ahead of an expected Reserve Bank interest rate cut on Melbourne Cup Day.” And Gerry Harvey will love this — the survey said views on whether it’s a ‘good time to buy a household item’ rose by 0.4% to an 18-week high of 5 points.

2. Move over James Bond…

Germany's Mercedes-Benz will increase its holding in Britain’s premier brand Aston Martin (James Bond’s favourite car) as part of the UK carmaker's recovery plan. Mercedes will increase its holding over time from 5% to 20%. The deal will give Aston Martin access to Mercedes' electric car technology. The plan is to almost double sales by 2025, from the 5,862 cars sold last year.

3. Donald Trump is President again, again!

President Donald Trump’s campaign appears to have a victory ad ready to go on Facebook. A video in the ad shows the president’s face superimposed on a sun, with a voiceover pulled from various sources. “It’s morning in America. Donald J. Trump is still president of the United States,” the video says. In its policies, Facebook says it does not allow “Ads with premature claims of election victory”. A Facebook spokesperson did not respond to CNBC’s multiple requests for comment about the Trump campaign’s ad.

4. Show us the vaccine!

Wall Street analysts have pushed the CEO of the world’s largest research based pharmaceutical company to be more specific about when Pfizer would have early results that could show the effectiveness of its vaccine. Pfizer is one of four companies with large, late-stage clinical trials underway in the US. Dr Bourla acknowledged the urgency of developing a vaccine amid a resurgence in infections worldwide. In the US alone over the past week, there have been an average of more than 71,000 coronavirus cases a day.

5. Dow and S&P 500 down again

Both the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 moved lower on Tuesday, with falls of 0.80% to 27,463.19 and 0.30% to 3,390.68, respectively. Rising tech stocks including Zoom and Shopify helped push the Nasdaq 0.64% higher to 11,431.35 points.