There seems to be no respite for the banks at the moment, with Royal Bank of Scotland and Alliance & Leicester under yet more pressure.
RBS lost 17p to 431.5p, partly due to a downbeat note from Credit Suisse. Its analysts have noticed that figures have just come out from RBS's US subsidiary, Citizens, and they do not exactly soothe the nerves.
Although the numbers are not yet fully audited, they show that Citizens' third-quarter profits fell from $737m in the previous six months to $661m. Provisions rose from $87m to $124m.
Credit Suisse says: "There is no split by asset type of impairment but, interestingly, the write-off data shows a continued negative trend in the mortgage book, in particular the second lien portfolio.
"Overall, the numbers highlight the continued lack of momentum within Citizens' profits. A repeat of the third-quarter profits in the final quarter would leave full-year profits for 2007 down about 3% on 2006 based on the filings, in our estimates.
"Combined with the fact that Citizens has a stock of mortgages of around $54bn - of which $13bn is classified as second lien - we think there is a good chance profits will
decline further into 2008 as provisions increase.
"Of course, Citizens is only 14% of RBS profits so a big miss here wouldn't cause a major issue for the group. But alongside likely difficulties in global banking and markets - and UK retail banking - it compounds the difficult outlook in our view. We remain on underperform."
Despite Alliance & Leicester doing its best to try to reassure the market that it is not facing funding difficulties, it is not working at the moment. Its shares lost another 36.5p to 611.5p this morning.
Sentiment was weak from the start after the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 120 points overnight. This was attibuted to poor figures from department store group JC Penney and a warning from finance group Wells Fargo that the US housing slump was the worst since the Great Depression.
So far the FTSE 100 is 60.4 points lower at 6299.2.
Catering group Compass - hit yesterday after poor results from French rival Sodexho Alliance - lost 11.5p to 289.75p after a sell note from Evolution Securities. It said: "The recovery story appears fully reflected in the rating. This is at a premium to the market and the peer group."
But reasonable results from Spanish cigarette group Altadis lifted Imperial Tobacco - which is buying the company - and rival BAT.
