In a day of stop-start trading, the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO) has closed virtually flat. Trading didn't get underway for around half an hour this morning, and then the ASX had another outage this afternoon causing the exchange to shut around 2 hours early.
We don't yet know what the cause of the outages were, but it seems to have driven investors to do something else. A flat market and hardly any strong share price gains or losses was the result.
But these 4 companies saw their share prices sink…
S2 Resources Ltd (ASX: S2R) saw its share price sink 30.8% to $0.45, after the miner released some disappointing news about follow-up drilling at its Monsoon prospect in Western Australia. S2 Resources was a demerger from Sirius Resources taking with it the Polar Bear project (which includes Monsoon). Highly-regarded prospector Mark Creasy owns 30% of the shares too, but he'll be feeling the pain of the disappointing test results released today.
Buru Energy Limited (ASX: BRU) fell 7.3% to 19 cents, despite no news from the oil and gas producer and explorer. The only problem is the oil price. Ungani Oilfield production was suspended earlier this year and has yet to restart, and Buru says it will take several months from go decision to start. That's probably why the share price is down more than 20% year-to-date.
WPP Aunz Ltd (ASX: WPP) saw its share price sink 6.4% to $1.08, despite no news from the company. Formerly STW Communications, WPP provides a diverse range of advertising, marketing content and communications services through 80+ companies, and recently said it expected to deliver single-digit earnings growth in the 2016 financial year. The share price can be volatile given the low liquidity with WPP owning 61.5% of the shares outstanding.
Blackmores Limited (ASX: BKL) shares fell 3.7% to $124.16, but the vitamins and supplements producer has still its share price recover from falling as low as $113.53 set earlier this month. The company's share price plunged from a high of $166.26 in late August after reporting that the first quarter results would be lower than the previous year. Investors are still trying to work out what that really means and where to value the shares, which means the share price can move around a bit. However, at the current price, Blackmores sports a P/E ratio of around 21.4x.
