Oil and copper prices slipped and the dollar gained broadly as worries about the euro zone’s woes combined with fears about the flagging world growth to ensure no letup in the gloom that has gripped global markets for much of the past six weeks.

“People are quite nervous about Greece and other countries in the European area, so that is why investors are escaping to the dollar,” said Tetsu Emori, a fund manager at Tokyo-based Astmax Co. Ltd. “It’s risk aversion.”

Juergen Stark’s plan to resign from the ECB’s board underscored the internal divisions over its bond-buying program — one of the central bank’s main weapons in fighting the debt crisis by forcing down yields of country’s under pressure from the bond markets.

Japan’s Nikkei fell 2 percent, while the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell more than 2.3 percent and US index futures traded in Asia fell over 1 percent.

Wall Street stocks tumbled on Friday, when the Stark news broke, with the S&P 500 index falling 2.7 percent, and European shares also fell more than 2 percent.

Data from fund tracker Lipper, a Thomson Reuters service, showed that a brief flirtation with stocks at the end of August has waned, with less than a net $600 million flowing into US equity funds in the week ended Sept. 7, compared with a net inflow of $6.3 billion in the previous week.

MSCI’s All-Country World index is now 19 percent below its 2011 high set in May, not far from the 20 percent decline that is the rule-of-thumb definition of a bear market.

The fund flow picture for emerging Asian equity markets was mixed.

Citigroup analysts said in a note that China and Indonesia had seen modest net inflows for the week to Sept. 7.

The biggest outflows were from regional funds and the cyclical markets of South Korea and Taiwan.

Adding to the euro zone’s difficulties, top French banks were bracing for credit rating downgrades on worries about their sovereign debt exposure, and senior German politicians in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition began talking openly about a Greek default.

A growing number of policymakers, as well as market economists, are convinced it is only a matter of time before Greece, which keeps falling behind on its fiscal targets after two EU/IMF bailouts, will have to default.

The euro fell as low as $1.3550, its worst since late February, and later traded around $1.3585, after a sharp slide at the end of last week. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of major currencies, rose around 0.4 percent.

US crude oil slid by $1.19 to $86.05 a barrel and Brent crude eased $1.03 to $111.74. Copper was down 0.8 percent at $8,755 a ton.

Both commodities are sensitive to expectations for global growth, and hence industrial demand.

Currencies of major commodity producers were, in turn, under pressure, with the Australian dollar falling to a near three-week low around $1.0397.

Gold, which has been striking a succession of records due to its traditional appeal as a safe haven at times of market volatility, fell 0.4 percent to around $1,850 an ounce as a stronger dollar made it more expensive for holders of other currencies.

Gold priced in euros, however, hit a record 1,373.30 an ounce.