Up to yesterday it had been a tough six weeks or so for Salmat, the call centre and direct mail group.

The shares peaked at their 12 month high of $4.98 in late January, but it has been all downhill since then.

The company has produced an interim profit which disappointed, with the shares down 3.5% on the day of its release in late February.

At the time the company said it was still confident of making full year profit guidance of $92 to $97 million.

Then last Friday the company was dropped from the ASX300 index, meaning that some institutions will ignore the company as they invest to hug the index weightings.

That will see the shares lose some of their attractions as a mid cap stock.

Then yesterday those full year profit plans went out the window when the company told the market that Telstra had dropped it as a call centre supplier.

The shares fell more than 6% at one stage to a day's low of $3.84, just over the 52 week low of $3.70. They recovered slightly to end down 5.6%, or 23c, at $3.89.

The call centre provider and catalogue-delivery company said Telstra had notified it that it no longer required the provision of its call centre services.

Salmat said its earnings before interest, tax and amortisation would drop by between $4 million and $5 million in the second half of the financial year and