Greek drama weighs on sentiment; yen off, euro up

Stocks close slightly lower on Wall Street, cutting previous losses

The euro rose on Thursday as Greece fought to reach an agreement with its lenders to avoid an imminent default, but mixed signals on the state of the negotiations kept other markets little changed.

Crude oil futures rose in choppy trade after two days of sharp losses after data showed a fourth weekly drawdown in US crude stockpiles.

Creditors said progress in talks with Greece was too slow and a deal was still out of reach, a euro zone official told Reuters. But Greece's government said it intends to reach an agreement with its lenders by Sunday.

"Everybody is coming out with a different story. I'm looking for an EU-endorsed comment rather than something coming from Greece to be sort of the final arbiter on what the sentiment really is with regard to a resolution," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, which manages about $67 billion in assets.

Stocks closed slightly lower on Wall Street, cutting previous losses. S&P 500 e-mini futures turned positive shortly after the cash market close.

At the closing bell in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 36.87 points, or 0.2%, to 18,126.12, the S&P 500 had lost 2.69 points, or 0.13%, to 2,120.79 and the Nasdaq Composite had dropped 8.62 points, or 0.17%, to 5,097.98.

Nikkei futures fell 0.3% after 10 straight sessions of gains on the Tokyo index. Earlier, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 0.5%.

EURO UP, DOLLAR TREND SEEN HOLDING

The Japanese currency touched its weakest since 2002 against the US dollar, at 124.46 yen . It ended the session down 0.2% at 123.94. The euro gained 0.4% to $1.0946 and the dollar index fell 0.5% after rising 1.4% in the previous two sessions.

"I see the dollar trade probably continuing at this point since we're the only ones moving toward a tightening bias," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont.

"Greece is the wild card in terms of what will happen to the euro."

In government debt markets, US 30-year Treasury bonds prices were last down 7/32 in price to yield 2.8857%, from 2.875% late on Wednesday.

US three-year notes were last up 3/32 in price to yield 0.9571%, from 0.989% late Wednesday. Benchmark 10-year notes were flat, their yield at 2.135%.

Front-month Brent rose 1.4% to $62.91 a barrel and US crude futures rose 0.8% to $57.97. 

Gold