FTSE 100 movers: Banks under the cosh; utilities gain

London’s FTSE 100 was down 2% at 7,719.33 in afternoon trade on Friday.

Banks were under the cosh, tracking a sector selloff on Wall Street that was triggered after tech-focused bank SVB Financial announced plans to raise more than $2bn in capital to help offset losses on bond sales.

HSBC, Barclays, Standard Chartered and Lloyds all fell sharply.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "Lots of banks hold large portfolios of bonds and rising interest rates make these less valuable - the SVB situation is a reminder that many institutions are sitting on large unrealised losses on their fixed-income holdings."

Insurer Admiral was also in the red after a downgrade to ‘hold’ at Deutsche Bank.

Going the other way, utilities were among the top performers, with National Grid, SSE and Severn Trent all higher.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Fresnillo (FRES) 729.00p 2.30%
Endeavour Mining (EDV) 1,648.00p 1.48%
National Grid (NG.) 1,054.00p 1.01%
SSE (SSE) 1,735.50p 0.55%
BT Group (BT.A) 148.05p 0.51%
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) 7,398.00p 0.16%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,763.00p -0.32%
Centrica (CNA) 105.85p -0.33%
BAE Systems (BA.) 931.00p -0.45%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 4,016.00p -0.50%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 583.20p -6.10%
Barclays (BARC) 154.16p -5.67%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 456.00p -5.51%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 149.46p -5.43%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 792.60p -5.10%
Admiral Group (ADM) 1,884.50p -4.94%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 737.20p -4.88%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 49.00p -4.77%
Legal & General Group (LGEN) 251.00p -4.64%
Prudential (PRU) 1,220.50p -4.61%