* Oil steadies after sliding to fresh nearly 7-yr lows
* Europe stocks drop more than 1.5 pct as oil, miners battered
* Wall Street recovers from earlier lows
* Dollar up vs commodity currencies, but down vs euro, yen
* U.S. Treasury yields little changed (Updates prices to open of U.S. markets, recasts throughout, changes byline, dateline, previous LONDON)
By Sam Forgione
NEW YORK, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Stock markets worldwide slipped on Tuesday, weighed down by weak China trade figures, but indexes were off their lows after oil prices steadied a bit after falling within reach of a seven-year nadir.
Oil prices stabilized after plumbing lows last seen during the financial crisis as an intensifying supply glut sparked fears the world will run out of storage for crude. U.S. crude hit $36.64 a barrel and Brent hit $39.81, their lowest levels since February 2009, before rebounding. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N13X149
Brent crude LCOc1 was last up 4 cents, at $40.77 a barrel, while U.S. crude CLc1 was last up 29 cents at $37.94 per barrel.
U.S. stocks pared losses after falling more than 1 percent in morning trading, while European shares remained down nearly 1.5 percent. Oil majors Exxon (N:XOM) XOM.N and Chevron (N:CVX) CVX.N recovered from session lows, while miner and energy producer Freeport McMoRan FCX.N was last down over 5 percent.
"The fall in oil prices suggests weak demand globally and has worried investors as they put together their outlook for the coming year," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The concerns over a crude glut hit currencies of major oil exporters, with the Canadian dollar and Norwegian crown hitting decade-plus lows against the U.S. dollar. The dollar retreated against the euro and yen, however.
The dollar index .DXY , which tracks the greenback versus a basket of six currencies, was last down 0.12 percent, at 98.532.
"It's a perfect storm for commodity currencies," said Mazen Issa, senior currency strategist at TD Securities in New York.
Data showed China's imports fell for the 13th consecutive month, with an 8.7 percent decline in November compared with a year earlier, intensifying concerns over the strength of the world's second-biggest economy.
MSCI's all-country world equity index .MIWD00000PUS , which tracks shares in 45 nations, was last down 0.8 percent, to 401.94.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was last down 0.43 percent, at 17,654.35. The S&P 500 .SPX was down 0.29 percent, at 2,070.96. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 0.06 percent, at 5,104.96.
Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 was last down 1.52 percent at 1,441.81.
U.S. Treasury debt yields were little changed in choppy trading. Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes US10YT=RR were last up 1/32 in price to yield 2.22 percent, from a yield of 2.23 percent late on Monday.
Gold rose on the slight weakness in the dollar and decline in European shares, though expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve would raise interest rates next week kept gains in check. Spot gold prices XAU= rose $4.22 or 0.39 percent, to $1,074.21 an ounce.
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http://link.reuters.com/rac73w Currencies vs dollar
http://link.reuters.com/tak27s Commodities performance
http://link.reuters.com/rac73w
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