TOKYO: Asian shares slipped early on Monday as persistent fears about Greece’s precarious financial situation and downbeat U.S. data sapped confidence. Greece and its European creditors agreed on the need to reach a cash-for-reforms deal quickly as Athens missed a self-imposed Sunday deadline for reaching an agreement to unlock aid, sources close to the talks said. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down about 0.5 per cent in early trading, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index gave up 0.5 per cent. Later on Monday, China will release its official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, or PMI, which is forecast to inch up to 50.2 from April’s 50.1, according to the median forecast of 14 economists polled by Reuters. “The flash PMI print suggests a modest positive,” Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac in Sydney, wrote in a note to clients. On Wall Street on Friday, major U.S. indexes posted monthly gains but daily losses after the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment marked a drop, while the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Business Barometer unexpectedly fell. The U.S. government also revised its first-quarter gross domestic product estimate to show GDP contracted at a 0.7 per cent annual rate instead of the 0.2 per cent growth pace it estimated last month. That was slightly better than economists’ expectations for a drop of 0.8 per cent, but still underscored the fact that the recovery stalled early this year, and the Federal Reserve policymakers might wait longer to raise U.S. interest rates until they have more confidence in the economy’s momentum. The figures weighed on U.S. Treasury yields, stalling the greenback’s recent rally against the yen. It stood at 124.21 in early trading, below its more than 12-year peak of 124.46 yen scaled last week. Greece’s woes weighed on the euro, which slipped about 0.4 per cent to $1.0953. In commodities trading, crude oil surged nearly 5 per cent on Friday but started the week on a subdued note, as rising OPEC output and an expectation that the group would keep production high added to sentiment that the market remained over supplied despite ongoing falls in U.S. rig operations. U.S. crude futures fell about 0.7 per cent to $59.90 per barrel, while Brent also shed about 0.7 per cent to $65.13.