FTSE opens down as banks go sour

Poor results from Abbey National have hammered the banking sector this morning, dragging back the FTSE 100 index by about 2 points to 4,919, despite a strong surge by tobacco stocks on the back of bid speculation. Gallaher is up by 33p, or nearly 6% to 683p after news BAT might put in a £5.3bn bid for the company after an EU court overturned a merger veto in a test case, opening the possibility that a bid would not be blocked by competition authorities. Abbey lost 103p to 904p, a more than 10% loss after it said earning expectations had to be substantially cut. That made i...