British Land claimed the wooden spoon on the Footsie today amid concerns the City landlord may have to launch a second dash for cash.

Morgan Stanley said the £2 billion British Land and its peers Land Securities and Hammerson have already raised through rights issues may not be enough, and that a second share placing could be used to avoid selling assets while the market is weak.

The recent rally in the property giant's shares has left them trading at a premium to spot net asset value.

In a review of the sector, City big gun Goldman Sachs said that British Land is the stock to drop. Its shares sank 46 1/2p to 436 1/2p after Goldman said to sell and gave a price target of just 302p. Land Securities fell 38 1/2p to 553 1/2p, despite being named Goldman's top pick, and Hammerson lost 201/4p to 322p.

Big gains from the banking sector on the back of the US stress-test results pushed the FTSE up 55.61 points to 4454.29, back above its starting position for the year.

Royal Bank of Scotland took the crown among top stocks climbing by 12.5%, or 5.2p, to change hands at 46.8p. It posted losses of £857 million for the first three months of the year and one trader said to explain the rise: “Marginally less bad results than expected are the new stellar set of figures as far as investors are concerned.”

Investors in London spent the morning waiting for the US non-farm payroll figures for direction. The world's biggest economy shed 539,000 jobs last month, a significant improvement on the previous month's figures and better than the decline of around 600,000 that economists had forecast.

But the 8.9% jobless rate — the highest since September 1983 — made some investors nervous. The worst-case scenario in the tests had an unemployment rate of 10.3% which some in the City think the US is likely to exceed. But these fears didn't hit the Dow, which rose 88.49 points to 8498.34.

International Personal Finance, a doorstep lender in emerging markets, was the biggest mid-tier dud after a profits warning. Shares in the company dived 48p to 96p after it said that 2009 results would be substantially below expectations as Hungarian customers struggle to repay loans.

Some traders speculated the company could be close to breaching its banking covenants.

Cash calls were again in the spotlight as private-equity giant 3i, 49p dearer at 388p, and housebuilder Taylor Wimpey, 10 3/4p cheaper at 37 1/2p, went cap in hand to shareholders.

Rumour is that Monday will bring another big rights issue from a FTSE 250 company looking to raise up to £400 million.

That Friday favourite was doing the rounds again: a suitor sniffing around oil and gas explorer BG, which jumped 17p to 1131p.

The usual suspects — Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil — were touted, but one trader scoffed: “We've heard this before, once too often.