Tech stocks were the worst performers on Tuesday afternoon, falling in sympathy with US peer Hewlett-Packard which revealed a massive impairment charge in its quarterly results.

H-P shares tanked Stateside after the opening bell today after was forced to take a $8.8bn impairment charge to write down the value of British software giant Autonomy, which it purchased last year for $10.3bn in an effort to expand into cloud-computing.

The company said in a statement: "HP is extremely disappointed to find that some former members of Autonomy's management team used accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures to inflate the underlying financial metrics of the company, prior to Autonomy's acquisition by HP."

To make matters worse, both sales and profits in the fourth quarter failed to meet forecasts.

In London, AIM-listed maritime identification and tracking group Software Radio Technology was the heaviest faller in the sector after its first-half results disappointed.

Shares were down 12% after the company reported that a loss before tax of £0.17m in the six months to the end of September, down from a profit of £1.2m the year before. Revenues dropped from £4.66m in the first half of last year to £3.48m.

Semiconductor group CML Microsystems also failed to please with its interim figures. Revenues were up 3.3% year-on-year, while pre-tax profits gained 19.5%.

ARM Holdings, Pace, Belgravium Tech, Filtronic, CSR and Imagination Tech were also heavy fallers in the tech sector.


Top performing sectors so far today
Personal Goods 19,495.56 +1.75%
Automobiles & Parts 4,928.64 +1.49%
Mobile Telecommunications 3,786.27 +1.11%
Travel & Leisure 5,126.29 +1.10%
Household Goods & Home Construction 7,900.03 +0.89%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Technology Hardware & Equipment 906.99 -1.58%
Banks 4,181.60 -1.54%
Industrial Metals & Mining 2,435.98 -0.89%
Tobacco 36,453.98 -0.73%
Forestry & Paper 6,872.13 -0.62%

BC

Related share prices
ARM Holdings (ARM) share price
Filtronic (FTC) share price
Pace (PIC) share price
CML Microsystems (CML) share price
Belgravium Technologies (BVM) share price
Imagination Technologies Group (IMG) share price
CSR (CSR) share price
Software Radio Technology (SRT) share price