Bloodbath on the ASX; 2-year low

The ASX 200 dropped 175 points to 4067 at midday – a drop of over 4 per cent comparable to the 500 point drop on the Dow Jones index overnight. The drop puts the index at a 2-year low, and over 20 per cent down on April 2011’s high of 5069.

Up to $60 billion was wiped off the sharemarket as the possibility of GFC2 grew.

This was supposed to be a week buoyed by the US decision to raise its debt ceiling, but the tensions in the US had only crowded out the real story; the deteriorating credit situation across the globe. IT companies were not spared in the bloodbath with the InfoTech index dropping 3.5 per cent. Some of the worst affected companies included solar panel manufacturer Silex Systems (ASX:SLX) which dropped almost 11 per cent to $2.76.

Codan (ASX:CDA) dropped 10 per cent to $1.06 despite recently announcing it had won a contract to supply AFRICOM.

UXC Consulting (ASX:UXC) dropped almost 9 per cent to $0.62 despite news that it had revealed that it hoped to close the sale of its Field Solutions Group this month, with buyer finance approvals confirmed.

Oakton (ASX:OKN) dropped 7 per cent to $1.84 despite recently announcing it had resolved Oakton’s long running dispute with Tenix.

Hansen Technologies (ASX:HSN) slumped nearly 7% to 88c despite Hansen winning a major contract with a subsidiary of Telefonica in Spain to provide billing and customer care support.

Internet giant, Melbourne IT (ASX:MLB) was the best of a bad lot dropping 5c to $1.70 with the market shrugging off the recent resignation of CFO, Carolyn Sutton.

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