Banks continue to be battered

Major turmoil played out among banking shares on either side of the Irish Sea yesterday as some British and Irish banks appeared to be in free fall during early trading, as a large scale sell off gripped the market.

The ISEQ index jettisoned 253.79 points to finish down significantly at 3299.11, continuing a dismal start to the week.

While AIB did manage to recover from its intraday lows, the share price was still off a massive 85c to €5.55, thus bringing its cumulative share price loss to almost €2 per share for the first two days of this week. Bank of Ireland and Anglo-Irish faired as bad shipping 71c and 130.1c to €3.29 and €2.684. Irish Life and Permanent compounded what was a miserable session falling 120c to €3.80.