US markets suffered a violent sell-off overnight, with the Nasdaq nosediving amid a rout in tech stocks.

The tech sector copped the full wrath investors, who are concerned valuations in that space have become too stretched.

Wall Street was rattled initially by yesterday's data out of China showing a surprise contraction in exports last month.

The sell-off soon intensified, as even the big tech companies like Facebook and Google suffered losses of four to five percent.

Conditions were a lot calmer in commodity markets. Gold rose modestly as the Fed meeting minutes for March revealed a surprisingly dovish tone.

Elsewhere, oil weakened on the back of yesterday's poor Chinese export numbers. However its losses were capped by overnight data showing a bigger-than-expected drop in weekly US jobless claims.

In currency markets, the greenback continued to weaken as traders pushed out their expectations for Fed rate hike following the release of this week's minutes.

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