guardian.co.uk – A hedge fund admitted yesterday it had been speculating that shares in Barclays would fall. The admission by Lansdowne Partners that it had been shorting Barclays shares on Friday – a day when the bank lost a quarter of its value – came amid concern that hedge funds could be blamed for the dramatic slide in bank shares yesterday.

Hedge funds have to disclose any short positions – where they sell shares they do not own in the hope of buying them back at a lower price to make a profit – but are no longer banned from the practice after a change to the Financial Services Authority’s rules at the end of last week.

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Tags: admission, barclays, dramatic slide, financial-services-authority, guardian, lansdowne partners