Banks in the eye of the storm

The FTSE 100 seemed to be stabilising in mid-morning at around 5% down before taking another turn for the worse. It teetered around the 4,000-point mark, down 7% to or 299 points to 4014.8. It is a measure of how turbulent the times are that even that almost represented a respite – first thing the blue-chip index plunged 10%. A close of more than 6% down would put today in the top five of the FTSE 100's worst ever days. The banks are in the eye of the storm and these remained big fallers by mid-morning, with HBOS... [read full story]