September was characterised by intense equity market volatility as the worst financial crisis of the modern era unfolded. The month saw both the biggest daily rise and fall on record in the FTSE 100 index, however, the FTSE All-Share index finished the month 13.24% down in sterling, total return terms.The US Treasury's bailout of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sparked a rally in UK stocks early on, before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers caused share price collapses in major Financials on both sides of the Atlantic. UK Banks and building societies were hard hit and under severe share price pressure, HBoS agreed a takeover by Lloyds TSB.Stocks surged on news of a large scale bailout plan in the US, while US and UK regulators banned short selling in a number of financial stocks. Those gains were wiped out when US lawmakers failed to rubberstamp the bailout plan, and UK markets fell sharply in the aftermath of the nationalisation of the country's largest buy-to-let landlord, Bradford and Bingley.In terms of activity, we added to our holding in Man Group on weakness, doing the same with Dana Petroleum. We trimmed our holding in GlaxoSmithKline as the stock outperformed, taking advantage of the bid for British Energy to exit our position.
