There seems to be no end to the slide in Alliance & Leicester, which was the worst performer in the leading index today.
Rumours earlier this week that the mortgage bank had run into funding difficulties or had used the Bank of England's emergency facility were stoutly denied.
But more stories about its financial state did the rounds today, including suggestions it might have to issue a profit warning or that it was only able to raise money by paying well over Libor. (To add to the general credit woes, three-month Libor - the rate at which banks lend to each other - rose again from 6.3425% to 6.39875%.)
When contacted, an A&L spokesman again denied any problems and tackled some of the rumours. He said: "We are not aware of any specific reason for our share price fall. We are continuing to successfully raise funds at around Libor. Standard & Poor's reaffirmed our credit ratings on November 7. We have not raised any funds from the Bank of England and our share buyback programme continues."
Still, its shares closed down 41p to 607p, a 6.3% decline. The bank is set to issue a trading update within the next few days, certainly before the end of the month.
With Royal Bank of Scotland down 4.9% and Barclays 4% lower, the FTSE 100 ended 68.4 points lower at 6291.2.
