FTSE seen opening down

LONDON (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 .FTSE index is seen opening down as much as 4.4 percent on Monday, according to financial bookmakers, tracking a slide in Asian markets as the financial crisis intensified over the weekend.

"Financial stocks are certainly going to be under pressure with German mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate being the latest to receive state aid but the overall impact is going to cross all sectors with the prospect of slowing demand weighing on all the heavyweights," said Matthew Buckland, a dealer at CMC Markets.

Germany offered a blanket bank deposit guarantee as it clinched a deal to rescue lender Hypo Real Estate HRXG.DE, though it remained opposed to any shared bank rescue fund. Regulators from Washington to Seoul also took their own steps to ensure the stability of financial firms.

The Financial Times said Chancellor Alistair Darling was considering a dramatic taxpayer funded recapitalisation of Britain's banks, amid signs of cross-party and central bank support for an effective part-nationalisation of the sector.

Investors were also concerned whether a $700 billion (398 billion pound) bailout package from the United States could prevent a global recession.

"The markets were clearly unimpressed at the delay in passing the economic rescue package and the economic data last week from both sides of the pond (Atlantic) indicated that there is much damage already done to the global economy," said Oliver Stevens, head of dealing at IG Markets.

"The question now seems to be how bad a recession we are in, not whether we are going into recession. Fear and uncertainty are likely to continue to rule today and how low we go is anyone's guess."

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei average .N225 was down 4 percent.

Financial bookmakers expected the FTSE 100 to open down 200 to 223 points after closing up 2.3 percent on Friday.

(Reporting by Dominic Lau)