Regional banks active in Florida had a conversion on tobacco Monday on Wall Street.

Wachovia & National City and lost almost 15 percent. Fort Lauderdale Bank Atlantic fell from 25 percent. And Washington Mutual fell by almost 35 percent. The broader Standard & Poor’s Financials Index fell to its lowest level since October 1998.

The sale was the middle of the fears increasingly on the stability of the banking sector Friday after their use by the regulatory authorities of IndyMac Bancorp Inc. Investors are concerned because IndyMac, the nation’s largest savings and loan and a spin-off of Countrywide Financial Corp. , The largest savings regulated to failure and the second largest financial institution to close in American history.

This means opening the season on the banks with substantial exposure mortgages - banks, as in Seattle and Washington Mutual Cleveland’s National City. The two machines have its public relations work in overdrive to the damage. National City, the 10-nation bank in importance, said that he was “not unusual applicant or the creditor and has more than $ 12 billion a year short-term excess liquidity.”

For its part, Bank Atlantic said in a statement that they have a “good kapita institution, in all legal standards.”

Meanwhile, financial analyst Richard Bove of Lutz tries to determine which bank will fail again.

Bove, of Ladenburg Thalmann, stipulates that the number from 150 to 7,500 U.S. banks fail May within the next 18 months due to the increase of mortgage default.

In a report published Sunday, Bove first test to all of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., by the institutions and against any Bank of claims in all of its assets over two reports.

Bove has a second series of numbers of departments Bank nonperforming assets from its reserves so that the ordinary shares.

High on the two lists are three banks to set up shops in Florida: Atlantic Bank, Miami, Washington Mutual and lakes Bank United Financial Corp.

In a statement on Monday, Washington Mutual, said he recently raised $ 7.2 billion in capital and the company significantly more than in all the rules “well capitalized” minimum standards for the bodies of the deposits. And a United Bank spokesman said that the lender has largely avoided sub prime loans in danger.

The FDIC not disclose the banks that he believes in difficulty. The agency has $ 53 billion set aside to reimburse consumers to not lost deposits banks.

IndyMac eat up to 4 billion $ 8 billion dollars from this fund, estimates the agency responsible for the collection to take more money from the banks that.

But only six donors, including IndyMac failed so far this year.

“The system is not anywhere near the risk of losing it at the end of 1980 and early 1990,” Bove wrote that “despite all groan from the public servants.”

Details of the New York Times was in this report.