Global shares mixed ahead of Greek debt meeting; oil slips

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks stalled their advance and European shares stumbled on Wednesday ahead of a showdown between Greece's finance minister and euro zone finance ministers over the country's debt, while oil prices slipped for a second day.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and euro zone finance ministers were scheduled to meet at 11:30 a.m. (1630 GMT) to continue negotiations over the nation's debt crisis. The country's new leftist-led government has said it will end cooperation with those overseeing the country's bailout program.

EU leaders are due to meet on the same issue on Thursday. Unease over the situation led European stocks to turn lower after gaining Tuesday, led by a 4 percent slump in Greek shares <.ATG>. U.S. stocks were little changed.

"It looks like we are kind of hanging in and waiting to see if there are any fireworks," said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.

Brent crude oil fell more than $2 towards $54 a barrel after U.S. crude stockpiles hit record highs. U.S. commercial crude oil stockpiles rose by 4.9 million barrels last week to 417.93 million barrels, the highest since records began in 1982, the government-run Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday.

The data stoked concerns of oversupply. The latest two-day dip in oil prices comes after prices, which had halved since June, regained momentum and rallied more than 20 percent in the last four weeks.

Brent crude was last down $1.59 at $54.84 a barrel. U.S. crude was last down $1.19 at $48.83.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was last down 0.2 percent, at 17,832.15. The S&P 500 <.SPX> was up 0.01 points, or roughly flat, at 2,068.6 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was up 0.39 percent, at 4,806.51.

In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3> of top regional shares was last down 0.37 percent at 1,482.89. MSCI's all-country world stock index <.MIWD00000PUS> slipped 0.33 percent, to 419.76.

The U.S. dollar hit a five-week high against the Japanese yen of 120.42 yen , bolstered by a slight rise in U.S. Treasury yields.

"The story is still about U.S. yields and they have been trending higher and that has been supportive of dollar/yen," said Vassili Serebriakov, currency strategist at BNP Paribas in New York.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields were last at 2.02 percent from 1.99 percent late Tuesday.

The conflict in Ukraine sent the Russian rouble tumbling 2 percent against the U.S. dollar. The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine were due to attend a peace summit on Wednesday in Belarus aimed at ending the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Gold fell to a one-month low as the dollar's rise against the yen pushed spot prices through key support at $1,229 an ounce. Spot gold prices were last down $10.27 at $1,223.53.

(Reporting by Sam Forgione; Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London and Chuck Mikolajczak and and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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