Amid the will-it, won’t-it speculation surrounding the future of Barclays and its search for support was more bad news for the bank yesterday. It dropped 19.9p, 13 per cent, to a 14-year share-price low of 129.6p after talk spread that it may have to go back to the Government cap-in-hand even if shareholders give its Middle Eastern bailout the go-ahead.

JPMorgan cut its price target for Barclays from 210p to 150p and its earnings estimate for next year by 52 per cent, saying that if two oil sheikhs decide not to spend £3 billion exercising their warrants over the next five years, its capital deficit would widen from £4.4 billion to £7.4 billion, “which would potentially leave the need to tap the government facility in the future”.

Carla Antunes da Silva, a JPMorgan analyst, also pointed out that the rescue of Barclays was costing £3.8 billion more than would have been the case with a government bailout.

HBOS rose 1.3p to 64.3p and Lloyds TSB fell 12.7p to 118½p after Lloyds shareholders agreed to the takeover of the mortgage lender. HSBC slipped 64½p to 641½p after it went ex-dividend.

The FTSE 100 gave up all of Tuesday’s gains and more, falling 202.87 points to 4,005.68 as a series of profit warnings around Europe and American resistance to bailing out the country’s car industry raised further fears of a global recession.

Miners who supply metals to the motor industry were the worst performers. Kazakhmys, the copper miner that has debt to refinance next year, was the biggest victim, down 42p to a record low of 193p. Vedanta Resources, an aluminium producer, fell 76½p to 438p. Lonmin slid 108½p to 724½p and Xstrata fell 94½p to 705½p.

AstraZeneca dropped 304p to £25.01 after it gave warning that it was having to allow a rival to distribute a copycat version of its Pulmicort asthma inhaler in the United States. Citigroup calculates that this year’s forecast sales of $1 billion for the inhaler will drop by 57 per cent next year, which it believes is not factored in to earnings forecasts.

Wolseley fell 31¼p to 261¾p as traders digested its grim Tuesday statement. SIG, the provider of roof and wall insulation to builders, lost 23p to close at 158p. It said that there had been a sudden worsening in the construction market since mid-September. That drove Galiform down 2p to 17¼p, Travis Perkins 21¼p to 233¾p and BSS Group 21p to 221p.

Legal & General lost 7.3p to end the day at 69.7p amid fears that it might have to write down its mortgage-backed assets.

Carnival fell 114p to £11.29 and Vodafone was down at 119.4p as they traded ex-dividend. Debenhams fell 4½p to 23¾p and Marks & Spencer lost 11½p to end at 200p as both began 20 to 25 per cent sales to try to avoid even bigger sales after Christmas.

JPMorgan, the house broker of DSG International, gave warning that electricals would be the next on sale and the Currys group slid 5p to 11p ahead of interims next Thursday.

- New York: Fears that the economy could be heading for deflation and that Washington could reject the car industry’s pleas for a bailout drove stocks sharply lower. At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 427.47 points at 7,997.28.

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