When the history of this financial crisis comes to be written, the name Goldman Sachs will run through it as if through a stick of rock. Which is why it is fitting that the US investment bank is turning full circle—and its shares are on the brink of falling below the price at which they were first floated nearly 10 years ago.

Shares in Goldman Sachs yesterday closed down 11% at $55.18 after another rout on Wall Street. This is a humiliating 78% drop from their highs of October last year, and frighteningly close to the issue price of $53 when Goldman Sachs went public in May 1999.