After a promising start, the market has been Bear Stearns-ed. With the news that the US financial group is being bailed out by the Federal Reserve and JP Morgan, dealers have already moved on to look for the next victim.
So while Bear shares fell around 50%, Citigroup and Lehman Brothers also saw their stock fall back, albeit nowhere near as sharply.
It appears that Bear Stearns was faced with an old fashioned run on the bank after customers - including hedge funds - decided to get their money out. This followed days of rumour that Bear had liquidity problems, something it kept denying. So it was almost a self fulfilling prophecy, it seems.
Meanwhile in the UK, HBOS ended as the biggest faller in the FTSE 100, down 34p at 528p. Barclays, Alliance & Leicester and Royal Bank of Scotland were also between 2% and 3% lower.
The FTSE 100 has closed 60.7 points lower at 5631.7, while Wall Street is currently down more than 300 points.
Other financials, including insurers, were also weaker. Prudential fell 32p to 622p after its results, while Friends Provident fell 4.8p to 122p.
