Europe markets lower, tech stocks down 3% following Wall Street declines; Volvo Cars down 4%

European stocks tumbled in Wednesday trade, following losses on Wall Street and in Asia-Pacific markets.

The pan-European Stoxx 600

index was 1% lower at 2 p.m. in London, with most sectors in the red. Technology stocks dropped 3.5% as travel stocks shed nearly 2%.

The sharp decline in the region’s markets comes after the major U.S. averages kick-started September lower (U.S. markets were closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday), with the S&P 500

clocking its worst day since the early August global rout.

Wall Street’s losing session saw chip names come under pressure after two readings of U.S. manufacturing production implied slowing growth for the U.S. economy. U.S. stock futures were lower early Wednesday.

Technology darling Nvidia

tumbled more than 9% through Tuesday’s session in the biggest one-day market capitalization drop in U.S. history, amid a broader pullback in semiconductor stocks.

Dutch chip firms ASML

and ASM International

were down by 6.7% and 7.8%, respectively.

The broad declines stateside prompted Asia-Pacific markets to plunge overnight, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 down 3.19%, leading losses in Asia, while the broad-based Topix was down 2.79%.

“I don’t think we’ve got clarity as to whether the [U.S.] economy’s doing any more than slowing its growth rate, or earnings are really falling at an index level in a meaningful way,” Freddie Lait, chief investment officer at Latitude Investment Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday.

“To me, it’s much more about momentum and technicals than it is about fundamentals at the moment, and that’s frankly what led the market last month in that big crash and recovery that we saw. It’s not individual, long-term, fundamental investors driving these markets anymore.”