Investing.com - The Nikkei slumped and other Asian markets were in the red on Thursday as sentiment turned towards events in the euro zone.
The Nikkei 225 fell 0.78%, while the S&P/ASX 200 was down 1.65% and the Shanghai Composite off 0.18%.
The Greece Central Bank warned overnight that the nation could be facing an "uncontrollable crisis," if a deal is not reached with its international creditors to unlock critical aid deemed necessary to stave off bankruptcy.
The comments were delivered ahead of Thursday's meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Luxembourg. Over the last three days, deposit outflows from Greek banks have reached a level between $1.75-$1.85 billion, according to Dow Jones.
As well, investors saw the latest Federal Reserve meeting signal that a hike in interest rates this year remains a work in progress.
The latest Federal Reserve policy meeting ended Wednesday with language that more "decisive evidence" needed before it starts raising interest rates.
Chairwoman Janet Yellen's remarks to reporters after the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee left the federal funds rate near zero reaffirmed its two conditions for starting to "normalize" rates.
"Further improvement in the labor market" and becoming "reasonably confident" inflation will rise to the 2% target "over the medium term."
Yellen's other message, reinforced by downwardly revised funds rate projections, is that the path of rate hikes after liftoff will be "gradual."
Overnight, U.S. stocks moved broadly higher on Wednesday, rallying from previous losses in the morning session after the Federal Open Market Committee declined to issue any explicit wording on the timing of its first rate hike in nearly a decade.
Following the completion of its two-day June meeting, though, the Fed still indicated that it could raise interest rates at some point in 2015, if it sees continued improvement in the economy and labor markets, as transitory factors from severe winter weather conditions continue to recede. Future contracts based on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's FedWatch also indicated on Wednesday that investors now think there is a stronger chance lift-off will occur in December, opposed to the fall.
"The importance of the initial increase should not be overstated," Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said, adding that interest rates will be "highly accommodative," for quite some time.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ Composite Index gained more than 0.15% on the session, as the Fed upgraded its assessment of the economy for the second of the year. The Dow rose 30.79 or 0.17% to 17,935.27 on Wednesday while the NASDAQ rose 9.33 or 0.18% to 5,064.88 to extend gains from Tuesday's session.
The S&P 500 Composite Index, meanwhile, gained 4.13 or 0.20% to 2,100.42, as stocks on eight of the 10 sectors closed in the green. Stocks in the Utilities, Consumer Goods and Consumer Services industries led, each gaining more than 0.4% on the session.