Financial stocks have been at the forefront of worries on Wall Street as the mortgage and leveraged lending markets have, in effect, frozen.

While the broad US equity benchmarks are still higher for the year, financials and investment banks are in negative territory. Against a rise of 3.9 per cent in the S&P 500 in 2007, the S&P financials sector is down 8.7 per cent. The S&P investment bank index has fallen 16 per cent.