LONDON -- The FTSE 100 (UKX) continued its disappointing slide this week, dropping a further 14 points to 5,762 points, following on from a 100-point slump on Wednesday in response to U.S. market fears and a lowering of European economic forecasts.
Some individual companies are having a bad day, too. Here are three that are falling.
Tullett Prebon
Broker Tullett Prebon (LSE: TLPR.L) slumped today, losing 24.5 pence (9.4%) to 237.5 pence, after revenues for the four months to the end of October fell by 12%, due to that perennial culprit, "challenging" market conditions. Year-to-date revenue was down 3% to 731 million pounds.
The firm has also faced a further 7 million pounds in costs related to legal actions, taking the total bill to 13.9 million pounds. The shares are now down a third from their high point this year of 357 pence.
Anite
Anite (LSE: AIE.L) shares fell 5.7 pence (4%), despite telling us that trading is going as according to plan. In its half-time update, the wireless telecoms software provider said that trading conditions were "encouraging," with adjusted operating profit ahead of last year.
The share price had already doubled over the past 12 months, so maybe this is another example of what happens when performance of a growth share does not beat expectations, as everyone seems to expect it to.
Britain's ace investor Neil Woodford avoids the risks of growth shares by not buying them. Instead, he goes for top-quality companies with dependable long-term dividend records. And he's beating the FTSE in the process.
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Rentokil
Rentokil Initial (LSE: RTO.L) shares fell 2% to 86 pence after the firm revealed that its City Link parcel delivery service is going to make a loss in the last quarter of the year, where many observers had been expecting it to return to profit. But the division's cost per delivery was down by 12%, so maybe there will be profit next year.
Otherwise, things were generally fairly flat at the third-quarter stage, though cash flow did fall by 21% at actual exchange rates (11% at constant 2011 rates).
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