FTSE skids nearly 5 percent lower

LONDON (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 skidded 4.8 percent lower on Wednesday, with banks and oil shares tumbling and as Wall Street took a whipping from a grim outlook for the global autos industry.

The FTSE 100 closed down 202.87 points at 4,005.68. The index has lost 38 percent so far this year as a global banking crisis has driven the global economy onto the brink of recession.

Shares in energy companies were the day's standout losers, with BP, Royal Dutch Shell and BG Group dropping between 3.7 and 5.9 percent as crude oil fell about 1 percent.

A battered banks sector was further depressed by J.P Morgan Securities slashing its earnings estimates on the UK banking sector and taking the axe to share-price targets.

HSBC dropped 9.1 percent, with WestLB also cutting its rating to "sell" from "reduce," while Barclays lost 13.3 percent.

HBOS shares were up 2.1 percent, however, on hopes that Wednesday's meeting of Lloyds TSBL> shareholders will secure government funding and OK the takeover of HBOS.

Lloyds TSB shares fell 9.7 percent.

On the economic front, minutes from the Bank of England's November rate-setting meeting raised expectations of further big cuts, showing the bank considered slashing borrowing costs by more than 200 basis points this month, before settling for a 150-basis points cut.

"Everybody's focussing on the fact that the rate cut potentially could have been an awful lot bigger than it subsequently turned to out to be," said Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank.