NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Blue chips Citibank Inc. and Bank of America Corp. traded Thursday at levels not seen since the mid-1990s, their shares retreating as rising unemployment, uncertainty about the government's plans to rescue the ailing U.S. financial system and Citi's attempt to quell talk of a possible management shakeup all weighed.

Shares of Bank of America BAC, -1.32% hit $16.05, their lowest level since September 1995, while Citigroup C, -2.12% dropped as far as $8.73, the first time the stock has fallen below the $9 mark since May 1996.

Cumulative losses thus stand at 60% for Bank of America this year, while Citi's share price has fallen nearly 70%.

There was carnage elsewhere in the financials sector, as U.S.-listed shares UBS UBS, -0.54% hit an all-time low on the New York Stock Exchange, falling to $12.15. Goldman Sachs Group GS, -1.14% also took a fresh hit, its stock price dropping to $63.19, the lowest since March 2003.

Goldman's stock has fallen 70% this year, and UBS has surrendered 71.5%.

But not every bank was in the red Thursday: Shares of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM, -0.84% was up just more than 1% at $35. J.P. Morgan's stock is down 20% this year.

Still, this qualifies as relative outperformance among the large banks, bettered only by Wells Fargo & Co. WFC, -2.35% and its year-to-date drop of 9.5%. Wells Fargo's stock was little changed, at just more than $27.

Citi woes

On Tuesday, Landenberg Thalmann analyst Richard Bove cut his price target for Citi and said the bank should brace for heavy losses.

And on Thursday, Citigroup's directors reiterated their full support for Chairman Win Bischoff, saying the board "looks forward to his continued leadership" and calling a Wall Street Journal report about dissatisfaction with Bischoff "completely erroneous." Read MarketWatch First Take commentary.

The board wants closer oversight of the efforts of Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and his senior management team, the Journal reported.

The newspaper also reported that a leading candidate to take over as Citi's chairman would be Richard Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner Inc. TWX, and the Citigroup board's lead outside director. Parsons has run a savings bank and is one of the few Citigroup directors with financial-services experience.

Separately, the Journal reported that Citigroup is in talks to buy Chevy Chase Bank CCX of Bethesda, Md. This followed a Monday report in the Journal that Citi was in talks to buy a regional bank with operations that overlap with its focus in the U.S. Northeast, California and Texas.

A spokeswoman for Citi declined to comment.