Ongoing market volatility and policy decisions from central banks saw risk appetite diminish on Thursday, with the banking sector in London the worst affected.Policy announcements from the Bank of England and European Central Bank - as well as ongoing uncertainty regarding the Federal Reserve's potential 'exit strategy' from stimulus - kept bulls on the sidelines today as equity indices worldwide continued to undergo a correction following their recent performance.For example, since the FTSE 100 hit a 13-year high on May 22nd (just two weeks ago), the index has slumped over 6.0% as traders began to speculate about when the Fed will start to 'taper' quantitative easing, something that has been hugely responsible for the impressive surge on markets so far in 2013.'Cyclical' sectors such as banking are named so as they tend to track the economic cycle. Therefore, given that hopes for continued stimulus in the world's largest economy have begun to abate over recent weeks (owing to a more-or-less steady improvement in economic indicators in the States) banks and other cyclicals tend to bear the brunt of market sell-offs - the FTSE 350 banking sector has dropped by over 8.0% since May 22nd.Barclays was a heavy faller on Thursday, down 3.65% by the afternoon, on reports that Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC) had offloaded 84.5m shares in the lender at 308.5p each for £260m via an accelerated share placing. The reason behind the sale was said to be for the "capital efficiency" of SMBC's parent Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.According to Reuters, the bank was the seventh-largest shareholder in Barclays as of last month with a stake of 1.3%, following a big investment in June 2008 as part of a series of fundraisings during the financial crisis.Other banking stocks in London, including RBS, HSBC, Lloyds and Standard Chartered were also firmly out of favour today.Top performing sectors so far todayFixed Line Telecommunications 3,495.09 +2.59%Chemicals 9,515.71 +2.07%Mobile Telecommunications 4,418.38 +1.19%Personal Goods 22,159.73 +1.08%Automobiles & Parts 7,201.24 +0.82%Bottom performing sectors so far todayBanks 4,907.36 -1.54%Forestry & Paper 8,746.34 -1.46%Industrial Metals & Mining 1,466.50 -1.38%Real Estate Investment Trusts 2,365.55 -1.18%Construction & Materials 3,618.23 -1.05%