There was a rumour of it before the Northern Rock crisis took place which seemed to have been brushed off by Barclays. Now it appears the London Stock exchange briefly stopped trading in Barclays shares yesterday when they fell by more than 9% in early trading. Apparently the reason the LSE stopped trading in their shares was actually caused by an automatic cut off by the system which thought it may have been a technical problem.

Rumours are spreading that Barclays may be facing some problems brought about by the under performing home loans market in the US. Barclays strongly deny these rumours have any substance.

At the moment no one really knows just how badly the UK banks have been affected by sub-prime lending in the US. Any announcements of these problems could cause mass panic a lot bigger than the affect the Northern Rock crisis had.