* Global equities slip on renewed Greece debt jitters
* Euro hits more than one-week low
* Oil slips from 18-month high as dollar strengthens
* Long-dated Treasuries slip before auction
(Updates with open of U.S. markets; adds byline, NEW YORK
dateline)
By Herbert Lash and Emelia Sithole-Matarise
NEW YORK/LONDON, April 7 (Reuters) - Global stocks slipped
and the euro weakened on Wednesday as festering worries about
Greece's debt problems led investors to pull back their risk
appetite after a recent run-up in prices.
Crude oil slipped from 18-month highs around $87 a barrel
after two weeks of gains as the dollar strengthened broadly and
copper retreated from Tuesday's 20-month high. For details see:
[] []
Wall Street traded choppily around break-even shortly after
opening but European shares fell on data that showed the
euro-zone economy stalled in the last quarter of 2009.
Zero growth in quarter-over-quarter gross domestic product
in the 16-member euro zone highlighted the fragility of the
recovery, the European statistics office said. An earlier
estimate put GDP growth in the euro zone at 0.1 percent.
MSCI's all-country world index of global equities
<.MIWD00000PUS> was off just 0.03 percent, helped by a rise in
emerging market shares <.MSCIEF>.
The Dow and the S&P 500 indexes traded slightly lower, and
the technology-rich Nasdaq edged higher.
The Dow Jones industrial average <> was down 25.92
points, or 0.24 percent, at 10,944.07. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> was down 1.65 points, or 0.14 percent, at
1,187.79. The Nasdaq Composite Index <> was up 3.09
points, or 0.13 percent, at 2,439.90.
The latest round of jitters about Greece came after the
Greek finance minister said the country's banks, hit by a
series of credit rating downgrades linked to its debt crisis,
had asked the government for more financial support.
[]
The Central Bank of Greece said non-performing loans in the
Greek banking system rose further in the fourth quarter of
2009, bringing the full-year ratio to 7.7 percent.
[]
"One of the key dynamics is a renewal of a tired and
familiar ... (negative) story out of Greece," said Craig
Peckham, equity trading strategist at Jefferies & Co in New
York.
The euro dropped to a more than one-week low against the
dollar over concerns about Greece's ability to tackle its debt
crisis. []
The euro has been under pressure following reports that
Greece wanted to renegotiate a deal reached last month over
joint European Union-International Monetary Fund aid.
[]
The euro <EUR=> was down 0.26 percent at $1.3363 and the
dollar was up against a basket of major currencies, with the
U.S. Dollar Index <.DXY> up 0.20 percent at 81.547.
Greece denied the report, but the spread on the yield
between Greek and German government bonds exceeded 4 percentage
points on Tuesday, the widest since the euro's launch.
"The euro is underperforming. As long as these issues of
confidence remain in the market, the euro will have no ability
to rally," said Sacha Tihanyi, currency strategist at Scotia
Capital in Toronto. "Definitely the risk is to the downside
still."
Long-dated U.S. Treasuries prices fell ahead of a $21
billion debt auction, but short-term and medium-term Treasuries
made modest gains as weaker stocks and concern about Greece's
fiscal plans enhanced the appeal of the safe-haven debt.
[]
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note <US10YT=RR> was
down 1/32 in price to yield 3.96 percent.
U.S. light sweet crude oil <CLc1> fell 19 cents to $86.65 a
barrel.
But gold rose to a five-week high, near record levels in
euro terms, on strong physical demand and as investors, worried
by the outlook for the euro-zone economy, flocked into hard
assets. []
Spot gold prices <XAU=> rose $9.30 to $1,143.00 an ounce.
(Reporting by Edward Krudy, Wanfeng Zhou, Ellen Freilich in
New York; Christopher Johnson, Rebekah Curtis in London;
writing by Herbert Lash; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)
