Best and worst stocks on the ASX today

ASX ends down 0.5% as US Fed gets closer to taking its foot off the money printing accelerator

Mike King

Mike King is a Fool.com.au Investment Analyst and Writer. He caught the investing bug more than a decade ago, at a time when the U.S. had invaded Iraq and fear reigned in the markets. His initial success as the markets took off encouraged his passion and thirst for knowledge. With 13 years behind him at one of Australia's largest domestic banks, Mike's passion for stocks led him to join a boutique funds management firm, where he stayed for four years. A seven-year stint in equity research at one of the largest investment banks in the world followed that, giving Mike a thirst to pursue his passion further. Mike holds a Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment and a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning. His passion is to help retail investors invest better, and that passion was one of his primary reasons for joining The Motley Fool Australia in late 2011. Mike has written thousands of articles since joining, including for Fairfax Media, Yahoo!7, Ninemsn and has also appeared on ABC's The Business. You can see all of Mikes' holdings here

Published August 22, 2013 4:49 pm AEST

The S&P / ASX 200 Index (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) has dropped 0.5% to close at .5,075.7 after the US Federal Reserve members said they were comfortable with Ben Bernanke's plan to taper quantitative easing this year. US market dropped as a result overnight with the timing of tapering still unclear and the ASX followed suit.

Here are the top five best performing stocks in the index today.

Discovery Metals (ASX:DML) rocketed up 46.9% to 23.5 cents
Decmil Group (ASX:DCG) climbed 9.8% to $2.25
Ardent Leisure Group (ASX:AAD) rose 7.7% to $1.82
Ten Network Holdings (ASX:TEN) added 6.9% to 31 cents
AWE Limited (ASX:AWE) closed up 6.3% at $1.36

These stocks were the losers on the day.

Atlas Iron (ASX:AGO) dropped 10.2% to 83.5 cents
Magellan Financial Group (ASX:MFG) lost 9.3% to $10.60
SMS Management & Technology (ASX:SMX) fell 8.4% to $4.67
Medusa Mining (ASX:MML) slipped 8.1% to $2.50
Resolute Mining (ASX:RSG) closed down 7.9% at 93 cents

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Motley Fool writer/analyst Mike King doesn't own shares in any companies mentioned.

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