Asian shares down as Greece delays IMF payment, U.S. jobs ahead

Investing.com - Asian shares fell on Friday with investors focused on Greece's delay of an IMF debt payment and U.S. jobs data.

The S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.28%, while the Hang Seng index eased 0.88% and the Shanghai Composite declined 0.12%. The Nikkei 225 was down 0.48% after the break.

On Friday as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, facing fury among his leftist supporters, demanded changes to tough terms from international creditors for aid to stave off bankruptcy.

The IMF said Athens had informed the global lender that it plans to bundle four payments due in June into a single €1.6 billion lump sum, which is now due on June 30.

"Under an Executive Board decision adopted in the late 1970s, country members can ask to bundle together multiple principal payments falling due in a calendar month," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said in a statement.

It was the first time in five years of crisis that Greece has postponed a repayment on its €240 billion bailouts from euro zone governments and the IMF, and it came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said talks on a cash-for-reforms deal were still far from reaching an agreement.

Overnight, U.S. stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the Oil & Gas, Basic Materials and Industrials sectors led shares lower.

At the close in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.94%, while the S&P 500 index lost 0.86%, and the NASDAQ Composite index declined 0.79%.

Elsewhere, the IMF said in its annual analysis of the U.S. economy on Thursday that the Fed should delay lift-off on raising interest rates until the first half of 2016 unless there are significant improvements in wage and inflationary growth.

Investors await Friday's release of the U.S. jobs report from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics for further indications on the strength of the U.S. labor market. On Thursday, the Labor Department said in a weekly report that initial jobless claims for the week ending on May 30 declined by 8,000 to 276,000 from the previous week. Analysts expected initial jobless claims to fall by 5,000 to 279,000 last week.