UBS has been slapped with a $120,000 fine from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission after poorly trained staff wrongly classified on-market buy-backs that UBS was conducting on behalf of six ASX-listed companies. UBS was supposed to buy the shares in the ordinary course of trading. But 328 trades (out of nearly 200,000) were internal crosses and reported as Trades with Price Improvement, known as NXXT. The trades should have been done through an order book without any knowledge of the identity of the counter party.

About 18 million shares were purchased as NXXT, which is not permitted for on-market buy backs. UBS has done more training and updated the equities desk manual since ASIC brought the breach to its attention.

Nissan Motor Co's high-flying chairman Carlos Ghosn was arrested Monday and will be dismissed after he allegedly under-reported his income and engaged in other misconduct, the company said. The Japanese automaker's CEO Hiroto Saikawa confirmed that Ghosn was arrested after being questioned by prosecutors following his arrival Japan earlier in the day. Trading in Nissan shares has not started yet.

It was a stunning development that left employees "bewildered" and fellow executives shocked and will pose a daunting test for the Nissan-Renault- Mitsubishi alliance, one of the world's biggest automakers. The Yokohama-based company said the alleged violations involving millions of dollars by Ghosn, 64, and another executive were discovered during a months' long investigation that was instigated by a whistleblower.

Taking a closer look at Fletcher Building, shares have dived to a six-year low of $4.73 on the ASX or a 14-year low of $NZ5.06 in New Zealand. Management said this morning earnings before significant items will be 10 per cent lower for the half year ending December 2018, compared to the same period in 2017. This is due to "emerging challenging Australian trading conditions" and the timing of house sales in Fletcher's residential division. It lowered guidance for the 2018-19 year to be between $630 million and $680 million due to the slowdown in the Australian housing market.

"While the company continues to target a result at the top end of this range, it is prudent at this stage in the year to highlight that 2018-19 earning will be impacted by the outage at the Golden Bay Cement plant, the slowdown in the Australian residential market, and the reduction in Land Development earnings compared to last year," the company's statement said. While Fletchers was planning to recommence dividends, this will now depend on trading conditions.

New chief executive Ross Taylor told the company's annual general meeting New Zealand's housing market is softer but "present levels of activity are sustainable" in the medium term as long as immigration levels are "not overly curtailed."

"In Australia, residential activity accounts for about 40 per cent of our end market exposure. Here we have seen a sharp contraction in new residential consents in the most recent quarter. This is particularly evident in the apartment or multifamily portion of the market," he said. The Australian team is 'factoring in a weaker Australian residential market than we had previously assumed". However, the project pipeline on the east coast of the continent looks strong for the medium term.

The S&P/ASX200 has dropped 17 points, or 0.3 per cent on opening.

Fletcher Building is down 8.1 per cent to $4.76 after announcing earnings for the half year ending in December will be 10 per cent lower. And information technology stocks have been hit by the wave of negativity from NASDAQ's 3 per cent decline overnight. Appen is down 5.6 per cent to $12.55, Afterpay Touch is down 4.7 per cent to $11.21, and Xero is down 2.9 per cent to $38.62.

Meanwhile milk companies are doing well with A2 Milk up 4.4 per cent to $10.23 after management told shareholders its position in China is "strong and growing".

John "Harto" Hartigan is resigning from the board of Prime Media Group. In his speech to the company's annual general meeting this morning he said it had been a privilege to chair Prime "during a period of significant challenge and change", but he will leave in 2019. Harto was chief executive and chairman head of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in Australia until 2011, when he was replaced by Kim Williams.

"So after almost five years as chair and with the program supply agreement [with Seven] locked in, I believe it is the right time to deliver a smooth transition to new leadership," he says.

"Over the coming months, the nomination and remuneration committee will lead the renewal process to ensure the best candidates are available to lead Prime through the challenges being faced by regional free-to-air television.".

Payment platform Zip will be rolled out through Bunnings stores from early December, it announced this morning. Zip offers point of sale credit and requires a minimum $40 repayment every month and charges a $6 monthly fee unless the account balance is $0.

Last year the Australian Financial Review's Rear Window column wrote that Melbourne lawyer Philip Crutchfield is a non-executive director of Zip and also sometimes acts on behalf of the corporate regulator, ASIC, which has launched an inquiry into buy now pay later services. Zip shares last traded at 93 cents.

The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) this morning revealed a loss of $68.4 million for the six months ending September 30, however it recorded an operating profit of nearly $25 million from revenue of $220 million. The statutory loss was driven by a $113.6 million change in the market value of its livestock. Analysts were expecting revenue of $305 million, according to Bloomberg.

Chief executive Hugh Killen said weather and macro trends have affected the company's financial performance.

"The increase in global beef supply, which is likely to extend into 2019, has led to competitive pressure on pricing, however our Wagyu revenue for the half was up, driven by increased sales volumes," he said.

AACo shares last traded at $1.23

Mining giant BHP has settled its long-running $1 billion-plus tax battle with the Australian Tax Office. The dispute centres on the amount of tax payable from the sale of BHP's commodities to the company's marketing business in Singapore. BHP was hit with revised tax bills of $661 million which amounted to more than $1 billion, including interest and penalties, for the years 2003 to 2013. As part of the settlement deal revealed on Monday, BHP, the world's largest miner, will change the ownership structure of its Singapore business and will pay $529 million in additional taxes on income for 2003 to 2018, the company said in a statement. BHP said it had already paid $328 million of that amount.

This morning it also confirmed a minor company name change - dropping the Billiton. It will now be known as BHP Group Ltd in Australia and BHP Group Plc in the UK. On Friday its ticker on the London Stock Exchange will change from BLT to BHP.

Nick Toscano has the full tax story here.

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Markets have given a resounding "nope" to all varieties of risk overnight as markets fell. It sets up the ASX to open lower, with futures pointing to a 17-point drop at the open. Equities have been slogged on Wall Street, following to a sluggish day in European markets, that saw the FTSE drop 0.2 per cent and the DAX shed 0.85 per cent. Here it looks like this is the convergence punters have been calling: US shares are playing a rapid catch-up with their global counterparts. The losses are piling up. The NASDAQ has been hit the worst in the North American session led by falls in FANG stocks.

It will be another day with a dearth of scheduled economic data, with RBA Minutes this morning the highlight. It was another matter of yesterday's sell-off simply being an "equity problem": few sectors were spared from the selling, as investors, trading within thinner volumes, unwound their exposure to equities. The story for the day – and this was represented in trading volumes – was the latest chapter in the Financial Services Royal Commission. The financials sector sucked 15 points from the index on volumes 15% per cent above average. The close for the ASX200 below the psychological-level of 5700 opens-up downside for the ASX200 in the days ahead to key support around 5625, with momentum indicators and the RSI suggesting such declines are more than feasible.

Good morning and welcome to today's Markets Live blog.

Your editor today is Lucy Battersby (lbattersby@fairfaxmedia.com.au) with help from other Fairfax journos and wires.

This blog is not intended as financial advice.