Shares in Fastbrick Robotics are up 20.5 per cent today to 8.8 cents and were as high as 9.5 cents after it announced a joint venture with Brickworks called Fastbrick Australia. Shares in Brickworks have responded negatively, with a 2.7 per cent drop to $16.09.

FBR has invented robotic bricklaying and what it calls "Wall as a Service" for residential houses. Brickworks is making special bricks for FBR's Hadrian X robot. Under the joint venture Brickworks will have exclusive supply rights in Australia and FBR will have exclusive rights to supply laying services to Fastbrick Australia.

DuluxGroup's board is recommending shareholders vote for the Nippon Paint acquisition, which is offering $9.80 cash per share, including up to 41 cents of fully franked dividends. There is also a special dividend of 26 cents that includes 17.6 cents of franking credits. The offer is a 35 per cent premium on the stock price over the past three months.

Shares are trading at $9.76 today, down 0.3 per cent from Friday's close.

Chairman Graeme Liebelt tells the market this morning: The board has carefully considered the strategic options available to DuluxGroup to maximise value...and we have unanimously concluded that the transaction with Nippon is in the best interest of our shareholders".

"Nippon has been extremely complimentary of DuluxGroup's team, capability, high quality businesses and track record of performance, all of which they want to maintain."

Futures for Wall Street's indices are tumbling after US President Donald Trump tweeted he will increase tariffs on Chinese made goods to 25 per cent on Friday.

S&P500 futures are showing a drop of 1.8 per cent and NASDAQ futures are down 2.1 per cent. This is weighing on Asian markets with the Hang Seng down 2.8 per cent and the Shanghai Composite down 3.7 per cent. Japan's Nikkei is still closed for Golden Week.

Macquarie Group's six-year run of record profits could be at risk after newly elevated chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake warned the home-grown investment bank's 2019-20 result will be slightly lower than the previous year's, the Financial Review reported on Friday afternoon.

The bank's immediate problem is that it won't benefit from the same big investment profits from the Macquarie Capital dealmaking division as it did in 2018-19, it told investors on Friday. Macquarie Capital's profit was up 89 per cent last financial year, to $1.35 billion, including the windfall from the sale of its stake in Quadrant Energy. It will pay a final dividend of $3.60 a share, partly franked, up from $3.20, on July 3.

Shares dropped 7 per cent on Friday to $126.63, but rebounded during the day to $128.81. Then this morning they dropped 3 per cent to $125 and are currently trading at $125.21, the lowest price since 26 March.

This morning, Bloomberg reports a fund called PFA, which oversees about $90 billion in assets, is refusing to enter new deals with Macquarie Group Ltd. amid a national campaign in Denmark to fight financial misconduct.

The S&P/ASX is down 81.5 points to 6253, a drop of 1.3 per cent. It is turning into a difficult day as corporate news delivers some bad surprises and traders may already be factoring in a big drop on Wall Street tonight after US President Donald Trump antagonised China.

The biggest drag is the financial sector, which has taken off 26.5 points alone. Materials, energy and industrials are dragging. There are currently no sectors in green and only 13 companies in the index are trading higher.

CIMIC Group is now down 10.7 per cent to $44.66, Appen is down 5.3 per cent, WiseTech is down 4.5 per cent, and Beach Energy is down 4.7 per cent.

Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer says cuts in official interest rates this year would help to support consumer spending, but cheaper borrowing costs are not the answer to the economy's weakness. Briefing analysts and investors at the bank's results, Mr Hartzer said Australia's economy was in "reasonable shape," but he pointed to low inflation as a key reason why it thinks the RBA will cut rates twice this year.
"To be clear though, interest rates are not the problem," he said.
"Certainly a reduction in interest rates will help a bit on consumer spending. But the question we should be asking is, how do we get businesses to invest, to grow, and employ more people, which would raise wages and support spending?"

"We must drive policy changes that incentivise investment, improve productivity, and build business and consumer confidence. That means tax reform, reducing red tape, providing policy certainty, and having regulations make it easier for businesses to borrow. This will give businesses and investors the confidence to invest."

Westpac shares are currently trading 1.9 per cent lower at $26.92 after Mr Hartzer announced a significant drop in half-year profit. Analysts have just finished their conference call with Westpac. The media call is scheduled for 12.30pm.

Retail Food Group shares are down 6.7 per cent this morning to 21 cents, and did drop as low as 20.5 cents.

This morning the company admitted to extending the shelf life of frozen food, following reports on the weekend in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and said it would withdraw products.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald revealed on Saturday that Retail Food Group was telling Michel's franchisees to ignore expiry dates and adopt new shelf-life dates that were between two and six months later. On Monday morning RFG, which also owns the Gloria Jean's, Pizza Capers, Brumby's and Donut King brands, said that it was pulling any products that had extended shelf-life from sales.

Trading in RFG shares was unusually heavy with 1.5 shares trading hands and sending prices up by 1.5 cents, a rise of 7 per cent. trading volumes so far today are low and are going mostly through retail shareholder brokers like CommSec.

A investor who recently sold out of the construction giant CIMIC says he sees no reason for why management would artificially inflate its earnings, and offloaded his shares simply because the stock was overvalued. The ASX-listed company, formerly known as Leighton Holdings, has been accused by Hong Kong-based research firm GMT off boosting its pre-tax profits by up to $800 million in the past two years, Patrick Hatch writes this morning.

CIMIC shares are trading 6.4 per cent lower this morning at $46.85, a drop of $3.19.

A report by GMT, first circulated to its clients on April 3 and then published in summary online last week, said CIMIC did this through aggressive revenue recognition, acquisition accounting and dodging losses from a joint venture in the Middle East.

CIMIC, which is 73 per cent owned by the Spanish construction group ACS, has not responded to GMT's report and on Sunday declined a request for comment.

Landmark White has just re-stated its guidance and is now expecting a full year loss of $2.3 million, rather than a profit of $2.8 million. Full year revenue is expected to be $43.5 million compared to a previous forecast of $55 million. The board does not expect to declare a dividend so it can rebuild cash reserves, and cannot say when dividends with be reinstated.

The board warned of an impairment charge which "has not been reflected in the guidance above".

Shares will resume trading tomorrow. The company expects 2019-20 will "see a return to more normal levels of revenue and profit and will provide further guidance to the market following the close of 2018-19."

Landmark White has released half-year results showing a 92 per cent decline in post-tax profit and suspending dividend payments. Post-tax profit for the six months ending December 2018 was $1.8 million lower at $162,000. Revenue increased to $23.9 million, but higher administration expenses ate away at profit.

Landmark White went into a trading halt in February after a data breach of personal information provided during the mortgage application process.

And this result was before a massive cyber security breach saw banks suspend valuations. Landmark White estimates the suspensions cost the company between $5 million and $6 million in revenue and profits. It has flagged a potential impairment and ongoing higher operating costs. Landmark White has taken on additional short-term financing and clients have returned. Net tangible assets per share have dropped from $0.0931 in December 2017 to $0.0309 in December 2018.

"Absent the impact of the cyber incident, we expect a steady performance from our residential and commercial valuation business and an improvement in our statutory services and insurance valuations businesses," Landmark White says this morning.

Shares are still suspended, but last traded at 38 cents.