The carnage on US and European markets overnight hit Australian markets hard today with the ASX plummeting over 140 points, wiping out another $45 billion.
A seemingly endless stream of weak economic data, compounded by dire warnings of a double-dip from major banks led already skittish investors to flee the market further.
Some companies picked the worst of days to release bad news. Billabong blamed the strong Australian dollar for a big drop in annual profit and lost over a quarter of its share value in a day. Goodman Fielder announced it would write down the value of its baking division by $300M and the market lopped off almost 20%.
In a day when the blue chips swam in a sea of red, here are some of the day’s biggest losers:
| Company | Code | Close | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billabong | BBG | $3.82 | -26.1% |
| Goodman Fielder | GFF | $0.77 | -19.7% |
| Roc Oil | ROC | $0.275 | -9.8% |
| Fairfax | FXJ | $0.74 | -8.6% |
| Qantas | QAN | $1.46 | -6.7% |
| Bank of Queensland | BOQ | $7.14 | -5.8% |
| Alumina Ltd | AWC | $1.70 | -5.5% |
| Downer EDI | DOW | $3.49 | -5.4% |
| Macquarie Group | MQG | $23.94 | -5.4% |
| Rio Tinto | RIO | $69.45 | -5.3% |
| QBE Insurance | QBE | $13.03 | -5.2% |
| Santos | STO | $11.14 | -4.6% |
| Boart Longyear | BLY | $3.54 | -4.5% |
There were a few stocks that bucked the trend, however. Newcrest Mining jumped 88c to close at $39.54 an increase of 2.2% and Telecom NZ jumped 9c to $2.15 with the market focusing more on its stable earnings and less on the write-downs that dropped profits by over 56%.
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