By Rae Wee

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Asian shares and global equity futures fell on Wednesday amid a sell-off in technology stocks, while the dollar and yen rose on bids for securities and U.S. Treasury yields edged lower as investors worried about the outlook for the world’s largest economy.

Oil prices struggled to near their lowest levels in months as there were signs of an agreement to resolve a conflict that had brought Libyan crude production and exports to a standstill. (O/R)

Brent crude futures were last down 0.05 percent at $73.71 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures fell 0.13 percent to $70.25 a barrel, after both fell to their lowest levels since December in the previous trading session.

After the US returned from the holiday earlier in the week, Wall Street closed sharply lower overnight, with AI darling Nvidia plunging nearly 10% as investor optimism about artificial intelligence waned.

This led to a negative trend in Asia: MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan lost 0.44 percent in early trading, while U.S. stock futures extended their decline.

The S&P 500 futures lost 0.1 percent. The Nasdaq futures lost 0.15 percent.

The Japanese Nikkei lost more than 3 percent.

September has traditionally been a bad month for equity markets, but analysts pointed out that several factors were behind the recent market slump, including weak U.S. manufacturing data.

“September got off to a buoyant start, with risk-off sentiment evident across all parts of the capital markets as the US rebounded after Labor Day,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone.

“Growth concerns were the central theme of the day. Economically sensitive assets were hit hard and hedges were aggressively pursued.”

A slew of U.S. economic data will be released throughout the week, including job openings, jobless claims and the highly anticipated nonfarm payrolls report due out Friday.

With the Federal Reserve currently paying particular attention to the health of the U.S. labor market, Friday’s announcement could determine whether the interest rate cut expected this month will be regular or extreme.

Safe-haven currencies such as the dollar and the yen, meanwhile, rose on safety concerns, with the Japanese currency recently trading slightly higher at 145.36 to the dollar.

The euro continued to retreat from its 13-month high to trade almost unchanged at $1.1048, while the pound fell 0.04% to $1.311.

Elsewhere, the spot price of gold rose 0.05% to $2,494.23 an ounce. (GOL/)

(Reporting by Rae Wee; Editing by Sam Holmes)