(Bloomberg) -- US and European equity-index futures slid along with Asian shares, continuing two weeks of heightened volatility that inflicted losses on hedge funds and caused strategists across Wall Street to cut their forecasts for US stocks.

The Euro Stoxx 50 futures declined 0.5%, while contracts for the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell over 1%, cutting short Wednesday’s gains following cooler-than-forecast US inflation data. Treasuries edged higher and the yen strengthened after Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said he expects real wages and consumer spending to improve.

The gyrations in stocks underscore the uncertainty that has gripped investors amid frenzied selling in the last two weeks as higher unemployment rate and federal workforce job cuts raised the prospect of a slowdown in growth in the US. President Donald Trump’s escalating tariff war and global geopolitical realignment over Ukraine added to concerns with bond traders signaling an increasing risk that the US economy will stall.

“This still strikes me as a market that simply cannot hold on to any gains at the moment, which should be a big old red flag for any potential dip buyers out there,” said Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone Group Ltd.

Equity strategists have recently tempered their expectations about the US market. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. became the latest to sound the alarm, following those at Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc. Earlier this week, Citi downgraded US equities to neutral from overweight while upgrading China to overweight.

The renewed volatility is because of “late realization by the markets that one soft CPI print may not change the Fed’s trajectory right away,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets. “Growth scare at this point is a bigger concern that is not relieved, only enhanced, by a softening inflation print,” she said.

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In US political news, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said his party would block a Republican spending bill to avert a government shutdown on Saturday and urged the GOP to accept a Democratic plan to provide funding through April 11 instead.

“A timely pivot to tax cut package will be rather important for the market given investors’ poor mood on various tariff threats,” said Homin Lee, senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier. “So any legislative setback like shutdown that undermines such expectation could become an issue.”

Hong Kong’s stock market has turned into one of the biggest winners of Trump’s chaotic first 50 days in the office. The city’s Hang Seng benchmark has surged 20% since Trump assumed the presidency, making it the world’s top performer. The city’s stock exchange is discussing options to lower the threshold for investors to buy some of the city’s most expensive stocks to stoke trading, according to people familiar with the matter.

“In terms of near-term outlook, it will be very much dependent on the US outlook,” said Frank Benzimra, head of Asia equity strategy at Societe Generale SA. “I don’t know whether tariff fears are easing. There still seems to be a lot of uncertainties,” he said.

Still, some strategists think a bottom for US stocks is “probably” here. The worst of the US equity correction may be over, with credit markets indicating a lower risk of a recession happening, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

If US equity exchange-traded funds continue to see mostly inflows, “there is a good chance that most of the current US equity market correction is behind us,” JPMorgan strategists including Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and Mika Inkinen wrote in a note.

On tariffs, Trump said the US would respond to the European Union’s countermeasures against his new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, raising the risk of further escalation in his global trade war. Earlier, Canada announced new 25% tariffs on about $20.8 billion of US-made products, including steel and aluminum, after the Trump administration went ahead with global levies on imports of the two materials.

Japanese government bond futures dropped to their lowest level since November 2009 after Ueda told the country’s parliament that he expects real wages and consumer spending to improve as import inflation subsides while robust wage gains continue.

In commodities, gold trimmed its gains and was trading around $2,940 per ounce. Oil fell Thursday after the biggest gain in two weeks.

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Some of the main moves in markets:

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This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

--With assistance from Richard Henderson, Toby Alder, Joanne Wong and Abhishek Vishnoi.