The Opening Belle

 European Opening Calls:#FTSE 5829 +0.43%#DAX 12601 +0.47%#CAC 4812 +0.42%#AEX 538 +0.42%#MIB 18925 +0.70%#IBEX 6738 +0.69%#OMX 1782 +0.64%#STOXX 3176 +0.47%#IGOpeningCall— IGSquawk (@IGSquawk) September 22, 2020 

On Tuesday, Debelle said the board was assessing other policy options “given the outlook for inflation and employment is not consistent with the Bank’s objectives over the period ahead.

One option being considered is buying government bonds with maturities beyond three years. The RBA is currently targeting three-year yield at 0.25%.

Foreign exchange intervention was another potential tool, though Debelle said it was not clear whether this would be effective given the Australian dollar was “aligned with fundamentals.”

A third option would be to lower the cash rate without taking it into negative territory.

And, the final option was negative rates, though Debelle said the empirical evidence on its success was mixed.

The RBA has previously said on multiple occasions that negative rates were “extraordinarily unlikely” in Australia and Debelle reaffirmed that stance.

"Taking action now means we may not have to take drastic action later on".

Boris Johnson will on Tuesday announce national Covid-19 restrictions including early pub closing and a return to working from home as he starts to reverse the freedoms of recent months.

After a meeting of the Cabinet on Tuesday morning, Mr Johnson will chair his first meeting of the Cobra emergency committee in four months, which will be attended by the leaders of all four UK nations.

He will then make a statement in Parliament before his 8pm televised address, which will echo the way he announced the original "Stay Home" message when lockdown was first imposed.

Italy’s rightwing opposition leader Matteo Salvini failed to make the breakthroughs he had hoped for in regional elections, voting results showed on Monday, in a boost to the fragile coalition government.

As the count proceeded, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) looked sure to hold on to three regions it already rules, while the right made just one gain and stayed in charge of two other regions.

In a national referendum held alongside the local elections, Italians voted strongly in favour of cutting the number of lawmakers in the upper and lower houses of parliament to 600 from 945.

Looking ahead, the selection of projects (and reforms) to be included in the list suitable for recovery plan funding will likely be accompanied by the engineering of a new electoral law better suited to accommodate the new diminished composition of the Italian parliament with the need to guarantee representativeness.

Both represent very ambitious challenges for the current government coalition and relevant testing ground for PM Conte's mediation skills.

Trump told thousands of supporters at a political rally in Dayton, Ohio, that his policies were saving jobs in the political battleground state after years of inaction to confront China’s aggressive behavior in global markets.

“I go to my guys, ‘What about doing a little movement on the dollar?’” he said, but they countered that was not possible. “‘Sir, we can’t do that. It has to float naturally.’”

The Republican president, who is seeking reelection to a second term in the Nov. 3 national poll, repeated his claim - which China denies - that Beijing deliberately changes the value of its currency to gain competitive advantage in global markets.