Updates to U.S. market open

By Lawrence Delevingne and Harry Robertson

BOSTON/LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - Global shares fell on Wednesday, with gold trading at record highs and the dollar languishing, as U.S. restrictions on chip sales to China and continued tariff uncertainty battered tech stocks.

Washington issued new export licensing requirements for sales of Nvidia's NVDA.O H20 and AMD's AMD.O MI308 artificial intelligence chips to China. Nvidia said the move would cost it $5.5 billion, and its shares slumped 5.5% in morning trading.

"This disclosure is a clear sign that Nvidia now has massive restrictions and hurdles in selling to China," said Daniel Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 0.30%, the S&P 500 .SPX dropped 0.91%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite .IXIC slumped 1.8%.

Fresh data on Wednesday showed that U.S. retail sales surged in March as households boosted purchases of motor vehicles ahead of tariffs, though concerns about the economic outlook are hurting discretionary spending.

"It is very possible that consumers are front-loading their purchases, and we may be seeing an artificial bump in sales, which the market will likely look through," Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management, said in an email.

Treasury yields ticked slightly higher ahead of a speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later in the day. Traders are wondering if he will echo the dovish tone set by his colleague Fed Governor Christopher Waller.

Separately, President Donald Trump ordered a probe into potential new tariffs on all U.S. critical minerals imports, on top of reviews into pharmaceutical and chip imports. Beijing is continuing to play hardball, having reportedly ordered airlines to suspend deliveries of Boeing aircraft BA.N.

European stocks fell, with the STOXX 600 index .STOXX down 0.8%.

The selloff in Asian stocks gathered pace in the afternoon. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell about 1%, snapping a four-day winning streak.

Chinese blue chips .CSI300 rose 0.3%, as investors also digested some solid GDP data that predated the tariff increases in April, but the Hong Kong Hang Seng index fell 1.9%.

"The broader focus still remains on tariffs," said Aneeka Gupta, economist and strategist at WisdomTree.

"In China, we've had the restrictions raise concerns that access to global tech hardware would be further choked off," Gupta said. "That's also resulting in a bit of a risk-off sentiment in the market."

The White House said Trump is open to making a trade deal with China but Beijing should make the first move.

The World Trade Organization sharply cut its forecast for global merchandise trade from solid growth to a decline on Wednesday, saying further U.S. tariffs and spillover effects could lead to the heaviest slump since the height of the COVID pandemic.

GOLD SHINES

All of the uncertainties left gold in an unstoppable position, with bullion XAU= hitting another record high of $3,304 per ounce, last up 2.4%.

Australian bank ANZ on Wednesday updated its forecast for gold to hit $3,600 an ounce by the year's end, arguing that safe-haven demand for the asset would accelerate.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the currency against six peers, slid 0.5% to around its lowest since April 2022 in a sign investors remained cautious about U.S. assets =USD.

The Japanese yen and Swiss franc, seen as safe assets during market turbulence, rallied around 0.5% and 1.0% respectively.

The yen JPY=EBS is trading around its highest level since September while the franc is at its highest in 10 years CHF=EBS.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda told the Sankei newspaper that the central bank may need to take policy action if U.S. tariffs hurt the Japanese economy, signalling the potential to pause the bank's rate-hiking cycle.

Investors moved into European government bonds as stocks fell but steered clear of Treasuries.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield US10YT=RR was virtually flat at 4.325%, after yields surged last week on concerns about the stability of the U.S. economy.

Germany's 10-year bond yield DE10YT=RR was 4.7 bps lower at 2.498%, near its lowest since early March. Yields move inversely to prices.

Oil prices rose more than 1% on Wednesday, reversing early losses as the market took a bullish view on China's stance on potential trade talks with the United States, though gains were capped by continuing fears that the trade war will curb energy demand.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin BTC= fell 0.38% to $83,676.95, down nearly 11% for the year.

(Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne in Boston, Harry Robertson in London and Stella Qiu in Sydney; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Joe Bavier)

((harry.robertson@thomsonreuters.com))