They led the way up, now they are leading the way down again. Yes, the market is on the slide after two days of gains, and the banks are doing much of the damage.
Part of it is profit taking after the sector's recent mini-revival. Part was a spate of seemingly spurious rumours that another bank was in trouble, and the Bank of England was calling an emergency meeting (which has not happened.)
And part was a disappointing set of figures from HBOS, which knocked its shares by 8% to 647p.
Various other tales were doing the rounds, including talk of Qatari interest in Royal Bank of Scotland, down 9p to 404.5p, after a large chunk of shares were traded. Other dealers however said they were seeing signs of investors switching from Lloyds TSB, 7.25p lower at 475p.
With the financials weaker, the FTSE 100 is now 40.9 points lower at 6046.5. The fall would have been worse if not for a vibrant performance from the mining sector, after an upbeat note on the sector from Credit Suisse. Vedanta Resources is 87p higher at £21.59 while Kazakhmys - one of the bank's top picks in the sector - is up 21p to £15.71.
Reasonable results from Barratt Developments, up 11.25p to 435p, are supporting the housebuilders. Persimmon is up 9.5p to 770p while Taylor Wimpey has added 1.3p to 179.5p.
Premier Foods continues its slide, down another 2.75p to 89.75p, but Game Group has recovered 1.25p to 193.25p after yesterday's news of director share sales.
