4 ASX companies crushed by the market today

ASX closes down 0.5%, but these four fared even worse

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The S&P/All Ordinaries Index (Index: ^AORD) (ASX: XAO) has dropped 0.5% in trading today, weighed down by the big four banks, healthcare stocks and Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS).

But a number of stocks fared even worse. Here we take a look at the plummeting shares prices of four stocks…

Boart Longyear Ltd (ASX: BLY), the beleaguered mining services company lost 10% to slide to 13.5 cents. There continue to be ongoing doubts over whether Boart can continue as a viable business. Thanks to its heavy debt load, the company still exists on the whims of its bankers. At the end of June 2014, the company had $556 million of net debt.

Smartpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: SMP), a provider of EFTPOS machines, saw its shares lose 7.8% to 23.5 cents. Shares are down 17.5% over the past six months, despite the company recently announcing that it expects to launch SmartPay in taxis in Australia, continued growth in the small to medium business sector and a number of other plans to grow revenues.

TFS Corporation Ltd (ASX: TFC), Australia's only listed sandalwood producer and refiner; saw its shares pummelled down 6.6% to $1.97. Still, year to date, shares in TFS are up 95%, as the company moves into a new phase of harvesting and selling rare sandalwood oil and heart wood.

Paladin Energy Ltd (ASX: PDN), a struggling uranium miner, reported today that it expects to see even lower production in the September quarter. In an earlier update, the company said production was expected to be down by around 15%, thanks to annual maintenance, but now says production is expected to be between 20% and 22.5% lower, thanks to additional maintenance issues.

Thankfully for investors, there's another alternative. The Motley Fool's top analyst, Scott Phillips, recently identified one cheap but growing ASX stock with a 6.3% grossed-up dividend yield which I think is a STANDOUT buy today. If you're interested in knowing its name, just click on the link below, enter your email address and we'll send you the FREE report on his top dividend stock idea for 2014 – 2015 right away!

Motley Fool writer/analyst Mike King owns shares in Telstra. You can follow Mike on Twitter @TMFKinga

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