The London market is having another bruising morning. In opening trade the FTSE 100 was down a massive 10%, touching a low of 3874 points. That was a drop of 439.8 on last night.
Today is the first time the FTSE has gone below the 4000-point mark for five years.
The picture improved rapidly in the first hour's trading, but the loss still stood at a hefty 6.7%, down 287.1 points to 4026.7.
The biggest faller this morning was HBOS, the bank that had to be rescued last month when the government sanctioned a takeover by Lloyds TSB. After two days of gains following Wednesday's £50bn government bail-out of the banking system, HBOS fell back almost 20% to 125p. It is still ahead of its close of 94p on Tuesday, when it suffered a 40% fall in one day. Lloyds TSB also slipped, down 12% to 186.7p.
Royal Bank of Scotland slid nearly 9% to 87.4p, below its closing value of Tuesday night, before the bail-out was announced.
Barclays fell more than 12%, down 30p to 211.75p.
Among London's top 100 shares, only news and information group Thomson Reuters stood in positive territory, up 2.2% to £11.24.
The London market took its cue from overnight falls on the Dow in New York and Japan's Nikkei index, which closed down 9.6%.
