It was gloriously titled and a memorable way to start the week, but followers of and managers at Hammerson probably didn’t see the funny side yesterday. In a note headed Keep the tin hats on, HSBC said that hard-pressed tenants would start to demand rent cuts from their landlords and promptly triggered a sell-off in commercial property stocks.

HSBC said that a shift in the balance of power to tenants undermined the case for long-term investment in commercial property and it downgraded every real estate stock that it covers (apart from Land Securities, down 44p to £15.10, which it upgraded to “neutral”).

Hammerson, owner of 14 big shopping centres, including Brent Cross in North London and a share in the Bull Ring in Birmingham, was the biggest victim. It fell 54p to £10.19 as HSBC slashed its target to 700p.

Capital & Regional, the shopping centre developer whose tenants include DSG International’s PC World and Currys, as well as Kingfisher’s B&Q sheds, fell 27p to 437½p.

HSBC cut its target on Liberty International to 680p, but Liberty, rumoured to be potential target for foreign predators, slipped only 20p to close at £10.12. British Land fell 30½p to 840p.

All this slipping and falling came despite Commerz Real, one of Europe’s top property funds, saying that it was actively looking to invest some of this year’s €3 billion (£2.4 billion) war chest in the UK and was particularly interested in the London office market. Hubert Spechtenhauser, its chief executive, said he was “astonished” that British commercial property values had fallen even further than those in the United States, where recession was a real risk.

ITV rebounded from close to its record low, rising 3.9p to 67.9p after a report that both RTL and Haim Saban, the American media mogul, were eyeing BSkyB’s 17.9 per cent stake in the broadcaster.

Carphone Warehouse rose 2¾p to 254¼p as talk that BestBuy, the American group, would take a stake was revived. A price of up to 400p was mentioned.

The FTSE 100 oscillated all day but the trend was downwards, hurt by Morgan Stanley declaring that the “bear market rally is over”. The index closed down 3.5 points at 6,053.0. The US investment bank said that now that the Bank of England had unveiled its mortgage security rescue plan, there would be nothing to divert attention from a financial earnings recession.

Thus, just like those property stocks, banks all duly fell amid fears that they would follow the example of Royal Bank of Scotland, down 11½p at 372½p, which confirmed yesterday that it was considering a rights issue. Bradford & Bingley, down 6½p at 164¾p, was the worst performer amid worries today’s trading update would be worse than expected. JPMorgan said that RBS, Barclays(down 17½p at 478½p), HBOS (off 18p at 540p) and Lloyds TSB (down 10¾p to 442½p) would have to raise a combined £37 billion.

— New York: Wall Street made a cautious start to the week after a profit report from Bank of America that was weaker than expected and disappointing news from National City, a smaller bank. The Dow Jones industrial average closed the day down 24.30 points at 12,825.00.

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