* U.S. crude settles below $30/barrel
* Major U.S. stock indexes down about 2 pct
* European stocks drop 2 pct as BP , UBS slump
* U.S. Treasury yields fall to 9-month lows
(Updates with close of U.S. trading)
By Lewis Krauskopf
NEW YORK, Feb 2 (Reuters) - U.S. and European stock indexes
fell sharply on Tuesday and buyers sought safe-haven government
bonds after another tumble in depressed oil prices.
Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 settled down 4.4 percent,
while U.S. crude CLc1 fell 5.5 percent, settling below $30 a
barrel. Hopes faded for a deal between oil-producing nations to
curb a massive supply glut.
The prolonged crude slide was reflected in results from oil
majors BP BP.L , whose shares slumped after it posted a $6.5
billion loss for 2015, and Exxon Mobil (N:XOM) XOM.N , which posted its
smallest quarterly profit in more than a decade.
The major U.S. stock indexes closed down about 2 percent,
led lower by energy shares, while the pan-European FTSEurofirst
index .FTEU3 also dropped 2 percent.
Some investors had expressed hope recently that other
markets were beginning to diverge from the performance of oil,
whose slide has been viewed as a sign of shakiness in the global
economy.
"We still haven't broken the correlation between oil and
equities and we are yet to find a bottom in oil prices," said
Jeff Carbone, co-founder of Cornerstone Financial Partners in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 295.64 points,
or 1.8 percent, to 16,153.54, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 36.35
points, or 1.87 percent, to 1,903.03 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC dropped 103.42 points, or 2.24 percent, to 4,516.95.
"With the backdrop of a pervasive nervous marketplace ...
you then have the decline in oil prices, which trips off not
just further concern from real-life individuals but also more
importantly from the machines which trade based on headlines,"
said Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co in New York.
The Dow Jones transportation average .DJT fell 2.9
percent, and hit a session low in late trading following news of
the first U.S. transmission of the Zika virus.
The first results of the U.S. presidential primary season in
Iowa also could be creating greater uncertainty for investors
because there were no clear winners, said Rick Meckler,
president of LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New
Jersey.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas edged businessman Donald
Trump in the Republican race, while on the Democratic side,
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won by a razor-thin
margin against U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
European equities were dragged lower by Swiss bank UBS
UBSG.VX , whose shares fell 6.8 percent after it reported a
surprise outflow of funds from its flagship wealth management
business.
MSCI's 46-country All World share index .MIWD00000PUS fell
1.7 percent.
U.S. Treasury yields fell to nine-month lows on safety
buying as oil prices resumed their slide.
Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR were up 31/32 in price
to yield 1.8603 percent, down from 1.966 percent late on Monday.
"The reaction in bonds is greater than you would think from
the stimulus of oil and the stock market," said Lou Brien, a
market strategist at DRW Trading in Chicago. "Part of it is,
maybe people started leaning the wrong way last week if they
thought we'd seen the bottom in crude and stocks."
Euro zone yields fell as European Central Bank chief Mario
Draghi confirmed his commitment to review monetary policy next
month.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against
a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.14 percent, while the
euro EUR= was up 0.25 percent against the dollar.
"The risk-off bias of the marketplace ... typically favors
yen and euro over the dollar," said Richard Franulovich, senior
currency strategist at Westpac in New York.
(Additional reporting Karen Brettell, Caroline Valetkevitch
and Sam Forgione in New York, and Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru;
Editing by Nick Zieminski and Dan Grebler)