Japanese Stocks Halt Four-Day Rally With Greek Talks Deadlocked – Bloomberg

Japanese stocks fell, with the Nikkei 225 Stock Average retreating from four days of gains that pushed it to an 18-year high, as talks between Greece and its creditors remained deadlocked.

Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest carmaker by market value, lost 0.8 percent. Fanuc Corp. sank 2.5 percent after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its target price on the robotics maker, while Jtekt Corp. jumped 4.1 percent after the brokerage upgraded its investment rating. Alps Electric Co. added 4.1 percent, heading toward a record high after five days of gains.

The Topix index lost 0.2 percent to 1,676.02 at the trading break in Tokyo, with about double the number of shares falling as rising. Volume on the measure was about 15 percent below its 30-day intraday average. The Nikkei 225 slipped 0.1 percent to 20,846.13, after closing Wednesday at its highest level since December 1996.

"We're in a market where we're swinging from joy to sorrow over Greece," Mitsushige Akino, executive officer at Ichiyoshi Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, said by phone. "The Nikkei 225 had risen close to 21,000, so I expect some adjustments."

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his country's creditors broke off talks Wednesday night in Brussels and agreed to meet again first thing Thursday. Germany downplayed the chances of an imminent deal after Greece rejected the latest set of terms from creditors, damping optimism that the crisis will be resolved this week.

The downbeat tone from Berlin reinforced the brinkmanship at play, with finance ministers set to convene again Thursday. Greece faces a June 30 deadline to repay about 1.5 billion euros ($ 1.7 billion) to the International Monetary Fund.

"The market's not pricing in a Grexit just yet," said Tim Schroeders, a portfolio manager who helps oversee about $ 1 billion in equities at Pengana Capital Ltd. in Melbourne. "But the probability is changing significantly hour by hour as we run into the deadline. That'll continue to plague people's thoughts until there's more clarity."

E-mini futures on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 0.2 percent. The underlying gauge fell 0.7 percent in New York on Wednesday amid the Greek talks, and as revised data showed a bigger gain in consumer spending helped the world's largest economy contract less than previously estimated. Gross domestic product fell at a 0.2 percent annualized rate in the first quarter, compared with a previously reported 0.7 percent drop.