This may sound like a conspiracy theory...

While the city fund managers had every right to feel very jittery about Northern Rock this week, it seem just a little strange that the Bradford and Bingley and the Alliance and Leicester had sharp drops in the share price.

The business sections of the broadsheet papers have been pointing out over the last year that the Northern Rock mortgage book was full of buy to let and sub prime mortgages and therefore the most vulnerable.

However while there has been some discussion on the smaller banks abilities to withstand a downturn in the economy, I don't think anyone expected to see such a dumping of these stocks and at such a rate.

Call me cynical, but is it just possible that some people in the city with sizable cash reserves stirred up the hysteria to see the price drop and then dived in at the last minute knowing that they could make a killing.

Admittedly you need balls of steel to carry this out, but the really smart money would have avoided Northern Rock like the plague as it was just too risky and concentrated on a softer target such as the A&L