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As horror stories continue to pour in from big business in the US, the world’s markets are increasingly veering toward meltdown, with the FTSE100 losing over 10 per cent in one week.
Business Weekly’s SHAREtrack index – sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers – has been no exception, dropping by almost three hundred points as some its biggest constituents take a rather large tumble.
The UK’s second-biggest software company, Autonomy made the biggest fall this week, plummeting 19 per cent, or 192p. The stock was downgraded to underperform from inline at JPMorgan Cazenove, which cited the company’s 70 per cent exposure to the US economy and its sensitivity to a broader economic slowdown.
Hot on its heels were world chemicals heavyweight, Johnson Matthey which lost 139p on no announcements and Premier Foods, which shed 14 per cent on concern that the company may need to resort to a share sale to pay off debt if raw-material costs keep increasing.
ARM, Travis Perkins, DSG and Whitbread all bucked the trend and managed modest, single digit gains during the week.
Amongst the huge list of fallers, including the 20 per cent of the index’s constituents which suffered double-digit losses, was housebuilder Kier, which turned around gains it had made last week and dropped by 76p.
The list was led by Centurion Electronics, which dove 44 per cent on news that it may have to suspend its shares on Friday, along with regular features in the fallers list, International Greetings and Screen Technology, dropping 37 and 29 per cent respectively.
The comparatively small number of risers during the week, less than a fifth of the index, was led by flat panel speaker firm NXT, which saw gains of 21 per cent on a trading update.
It was joined by micro caps antenna maker, Sarantel which gained 17 per cent on a contract win, and Titon Holdings which grew 15 per cent.
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