Friday 09:00 GMT. European stocks are tracking US equity futures and Asian bourses lower, as relapsing oil prices and concerns over China’s economy hit investors’ appetite for risk.

Traders are switching into supposed bolt-holes, pushing down government bond yields, boosting gold and the Japanese yen.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 is down 0.9 per cent as the FTSE Asia Pacific index sheds 0.5 per cent, on course to close the week at its lowest level in more than three years.

Futures indicate the S&P 500 will open later in New York at 1,895, giving back 27 of the 32 points gained in the previous session. Poorly received results from Intel are not helping the mood. US markets will be shut on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr holiday, so traders also may be cautious about leaving themselves exposed into a long weekend.

Markets have been closely tracking oil prices of late, as the plunge to multiyear lows amid a supply glut infects other parts of the commodity sector and raises fears that the moves presage a global economic slowdown.

Brent crude is down 3.3 per cent to $29.89 a barrel and the US-domiciled WTI contract is off 4.8 per cent to $29.72.

The market is warily eyeing the $30 level. Both contracts have briefly dipped below that mark in recent sessions, only to rally. Traders fear that a close below $30 could trigger further sharp losses, pouring more woe on to the beleaguered resources sector.

BHP Billiton, for example, has revealed a big hit from the sharp fall in the oil price with a $7.2bn writedown on its US shale assets.

The London-listed miner and its peers are also getting hurt by weakness in metals. Copper is down 0.9 per cent to $4,364 a tonne, sitting just above six-and-a-half-year lows.

Such commodities are under pressure from concerns of waning demand out of China, as the country’s economy shifts from its development phase.

Recent weakness in China’s renminbi have highlighted how much the market may be concerned about slowing growth. The People’s Bank of China on Friday kept the reference rate around which the renminbi is allowed to trade basically steady for a sixth straight session at Rm6.5637 per dollar.

But this failed to calm stock markets. The Shanghai Composite fell 3.5 per cent to leave it in bear market territory while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 1.5 per cent, after fresh data showed bank lending in China slowed more than expected but the amount of overall debt in the country jumped sharply.

Fixed income analysts at Barclays said that “intraday market movements during Asian trading hours have contributed more to recent price volatility in both stocks and bonds than overnight moves during US and European trading hours. This suggests that ‘China risk’ remains the major market concern.”

Investors are expressing their angst in a traditional manner: buying perceived haven assets.

Gold is up $6 to $1,084 an ounce and the Japanese yen is adding 0.7 per cent to Y117.23 per US dollar.

Ten-year Japanese government bonds (JGB) — another popular “safety play” — were firmer, with yields down 1 basis point at 0.22 per cent. Benchmark JGB yields, which move inversely to price, fell to a record low of 0.20 per cent in volatile Asian trading on Thursday.

Similarly, the yields on 10-year US Treasuries and German Bunds are down 4 basis points to 2.06 per cent, and off 3bp to 0.48 per cent respectively.

So-called commodity currencies, such as the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand dollars, are down by more than 0.9 per cent versus the greenback — a sure sign of investor nervousness.

The buck is also stronger against sterling. The pound is down 0.5 per cent to $1.4345, falling to five year lows as the market pushes back the timing of a Bank of England interest rate rise and traders fret about instability generated by a possible “Brexit”.