Lonmin (LSE: LMI) and Homeserve (LSE: HSV) have had a dreadful quarter.
The FTSE 100 (UKX) has struggled over the past quarter, with its ups and downs in response to ongoing world and eurozone crises leaving it with an overall fall of 170 points, to around 5,600 at the end of June.
But the index is just the average of all of the shares it contains, and just as there have been some that have performed outstandingly well, plenty have slumped badly. Here are three...
Falling miners
Falling commodity prices have made this a very tough quarter for metal and mineral producers, and all the big FTSE miners are down. But one that has suffered more than most is Lonmin (LSE: LMI), whose price has fallen by 244p to 778p, for a 24% drop.
The platinum miner based in South Africa had a particularly poor month in May, when half-year figures were impacted by production disruptions, higher costs and falling prices.
Over the past year, the shares are down 50%.
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Insurance disaster
Homeserve (LSE: HSV) has had 78.5p slashed of the price of its shares during the past three months, sending them tumbling 34% to 155p. And that comes after a massive fall last October, leading to an overall loss of around 70% over 12 months.
The firm, which specialises in domestic emergency insurance and covers things like blocked drains and boiler failures, was hit by an investigation into possible mis-selling of policies in October, and suspended all of its sales and marketing activities.
And it just hasn't recovered, with May's annual results leading to a further fall. Anyone want to take a punt on a possible 7% dividend yield for March 2013?
A contract gone bad
Cape (LSE: CIU) is our third casualty of the quarter, having had 166p slashed off the value of its shares, sending them down to 260p from 426p just three months ago -- that's a 39% slump.
The problem for Cape, which provides support services, principally to the energy and mineral resources sectors, was a project gone bad in Algeria. An announcement on 25 May that it was behind schedule and headed for a significant loss sent the shares down 122p on the day to 202p, a fall of 38%.
It's recovered a bit since then, and with a prospective price-to-earnings ratio of 6.3 and a forecast dividend yield of 5.8%, might the fall be overdone?
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> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.
