LONDON: World stock markets resumed their downward spiral on Wednesday following a sell-off on Wall Street, as trade war fears continue to niggle at investor confidence.
The volatility that has raked trading floors since the start of February shows no sign of abating as heavy, across-the-board selling followed Tuesday's brief rebound.
Around 1115 GMT, London's benchmark FTSE 100 index was down 0.20 percent, less than its main eurozone peers which lost almost 1.0 percent compared with Tuesday's closing levels.
The dollar meanwhile rose against the euro, pound and yen.
"Markets remain under pressure as the sell-off in tech spreads once more to the wider equities space," said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG trading group.
Dealers took their lead from losses Tuesday on New York, where the biggest names in the tech sector suffered sharp falls on a series of issues, made worse by reports the US was considering cracking down on Chinese investments in technologies it deems sensitive.
The Dow and S&P 500 plunged. And the tech-rich Nasdaq slumped almost three percent with shares in Facebook shedding 4.9 percent following the huge data breach scandal.
Tech sector selling continued on Wednesday, with South Korea's Samsung losing 2.6 percent.
In foreign exchange, the dollar rose against the euro, despite talk that the European Central Bank is heading towards winding down its crisis-era stimulus.
Stock market falls are meanwhile the latest in a series of swings in global equities since early February, when fears about rising US interest rates spooked investors.
Markets were then sent into spasms this month when Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, then followed up last Thursday with levies on $60 billion of other goods from China over intellectual property issues -- sparking talk of a trade war.
Those fears were soothed somewhat -- and markets bounced back -- as it emerged high-level talks had been taking place between the world's top two economies to find an agreement on tariffs.
In commodities trading Wednesday, oil prices slipped on indications of weak US demand after data from an industry body pointed to a pick-up in stockpiles.
The commodity had been rising on expectations of tighter supplies from the Middle East after US President Donald Trump appointed hawk John Bolton as his national security adviser, fuelling fears he would push for an end to the Iran nuclear deal.
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