Bank share prices are close to their 2008-09 lows

WILD gyrations in stockmarkets; banks' share prices falling like stones; politicians stepping in to back-stop lenders for fear of collapse. The echoes of 2008 are alarming. Morgan Stanley is one of the big casualties: fears apparently caused by its exposure to European assets led its share price to fall by 17% over the past two days of trading. You have to go back to December 3rd 2008 to find the last time the bank's stock closed at the same price as it did on October 3rd, even if it still sits 36% above its 2008 nadir. A French bank, Société Générale, has already breached its 2009 low, hitting €15.31 in late September, although it has bounced back by 24% since then. Bank stocks may now be approaching levels seen in the depths of the financial crisis but broader stockmarket indices still have a long way to go to reach that mark. That won't last if the banks get into real difficulties.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this chart overstated the share prices of the British banks by a factor of 100. This was corrected on October 5th 2011. Sorry.