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1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks tumble as Greek fears grow

Xinhua, June 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks suffered big losses on Thursday, as the intensification of Greek debt crisis weighed on Wall Street sentiment.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 170.69 points, or 0.94 percent, to 17,905.58. The S&P 500 lost 18.23 points, or 0.86 percent, to 2,095.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 40.11 points, or 0.79 percent, to 5,059.12.

Greece told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday that it planned on bundling four payments due in June, with the first due Friday, into one single payment for June 30. The total sum amounted to 1.5 billion euros.

With a debt deal with international creditors on the next round of fiscal adjustment and reforms in exchange of further financing still pending after four months of negotiations, Greece struggles to cover its financial obligations.

With state coffers running out of cash and the two sides still holding diverging views in key issues, fears of an imminent credit event and Grexit have increased.

European equities finished sharply lower on Greek uncertainty Thursday, with British benchmark FTSE 100 Index decreasing 1.31 percent.

In Asia, Chinese shares witnessed a deep V-shape correction on profit taking woes, with the Shanghai Composite Index plummeting more than 5 percent in the afternoon session before ending 0.76 percent higher.

Dampening investor sentiment, the IMF cut U.S. economic growth forecast for 2015 down to 2.5 percent from its April's prediction of 3.1 percent on Thursday.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said that the revised down forecast was largely due to the soft performance in the first quarter. The U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the first quarter, marking the third quarterly contraction after the financial crisis ended in mid-2009.

The IMF suggested the U.S. Federal Reserve should delay its first interest rate hike into the first half of 2016 in order to see greater signs of inflation growth.

On the economic front, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday that in the week ending May 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 276,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week's revised level, in line with market estimates. Endite