Barclays got caught up in the early turmoil which engulfed the banking sector today and saw its shares slump to a three-month low.

Its price touched 314p before rallying hard to trade 0.75p better at 322.9p. But that compares with the 360p a share at which the Qatari sovereign wealth fund cashed in part of its holding last month worth an estimated £1.3 billion. The Qataris made a cash injection into Barclays earlier this year which enabled the bank to avoid the Government's asset protection scheme.

Now it emerges that hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, who made a fortune from predicting events during the banking collapse, has also sold part of his holding in Barclays. He emerged with a 1.5% stake in Barclays shortly after its shares struck a record low of 51p back in March. Now he has chosen to cash in and has offloaded most of his holding having seen the shares grow to around seven times their value.

Other banks to come under selling pressure today included Royal Bank of Scotland, down 2.43 at 39.4p, with the Government's stake set to grow from 70% to 80%. Lloyds Banking Group, which has been given the go-ahead to raise £25 billion by the Government, also shed 2.63p at 84.5p.

Leading shares generally posted modest gains as investors tried to reverse some of last week's losses. The FTSE 100 Index advanced 5.1 to 5049.65.

British Airways shed a further 1.9p to 180p after threats of a court challenge by the Unite union to block changes proposed by the national airline to alter the working patterns for up to 14,000 cabin crew.

Cadbury firmed 3p to 773p ahead of results from bidder Kraft. Both Kraft and Cadbury are said to have been talking to Cadbury's shareholders during the past couple of weeks to establish what terms they would accept from Kraft. A number of shareholders have already indicated they would be willing to accept an offer of around 820p a share, although others are understood to be reluctant to accept Kraft shares as part of a deal.

Irish-based explorer Dragon Oil rose 37¼p to 447¾p after its 52% shareholder ENOC made a recommended 455p-a-share cash offer.

In arriving at its decision to recommend the offer, the Independent Committee has taken into account ENOC's majority controlling Dragon Oil as well as a written irrevocable undertaking from ENOC not to sell or accept any offer for its holding for a 12-month period commencing on 10 August 2009.

Rival Soco International marked time at 1286p despite Citigroup dropping its rating on the shares from hold to sell.

Asian investors had to endure some big falls at the start of the new working week this morning.

In Tokyo, leading shares slumped to a three-week closing low after exporters were hit by a stronger yen and weak US consumer spending data which sparked a broad Wall Street sell-off on Friday and left the Dow Jones closing down 249.80 points at 9712.70. But shares of Aiful Corporation and other Japanese consumer lenders soared after a source said the government may ease regulations which have crippled the industry and raised hurdles for small businesses to get loans.

The Nikkei 225 lost 231.79 points to 9802.95 after earlier falling as much as 3% to 9736.14.

Over in Hong Kong, leading shares also lost ground as oil and metals stocks dropped on lower commodities prices. The Hang Seng index ended the morning session down 1.72%, or 374.70 points, at 21,378.17.