3 FTSE Shares Crashing Today

Published in Investing on 23 October 2012

Mulberry (LSE: MUL) crashes, and Chemring (LSE: CHG) gets a new boss.

The FTSE 100 (UKX) is falling back a bit after last week's gains took it above the 5,900 level, and it dropped 43 points to 5,840 points by late morning as confidence in consumer business appears to be waning. The reversal appears to have put an end to recent economy-led optimism, at least for now.

But it's only a relatively small fall compared to some of the drops experienced by individual companies. Here are three from the various indices that are crashing today...

Mulberry

The purveyor of fashionable handbags and other leather goods, Mulberry (LSE: MUL), crashed by 324p (25%) to 996p today, after the firm issued a profit warning. International sales, we were told, "have not met our expectations for the first half of the year", largely due to a slowdown in demand in Asian markets.

Sales growth for the year is now likely to be below current market expectations, and profit is forecast to come in lower than last year.

Chemring

Shares in aerospace and defence engineer Chemring Group (LSE: CHG) fell 28p (8%) to 319p this morning after the resignation of chief executive Dr David Price was announced. Dr Price will be replaced by Mark Papworth, formerly an executive director at Wood Group (LSE: WG).

With Mr Papworth having prior experience in turnaround situations, the move has cast doubt on the potential takeover of Chemring by American equity investment firm Carlyle.

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Capital Drilling

Capital Drilling (LSE: CAPD), which provides drilling and exploration services to exploration and mining companies, slumped by 15% to 40p on the release of an interim statement that revealed performance below market expectations.

Belt-tightening by some of the firm's big mining clients was blamed as the main cause, though problems with industrial action in Egypt and a weak performance in Tanzania also contributed to its problems.

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> Alan does not own any shares mentioned in this article.

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