U.S. stock-index futures declined, after the index closed at a two-month low, as a buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border intensified investor concern that the crisis will escalate.
Sprint Corp. slid 17 percent in pre-market New York trading after a person with knowledge of the matter said it ended talks to acquire T-Mobile US Inc. Groupon Inc. slumped 17 percent after its third-quarter earnings trailed analysts’ estimates. Time Warner (TWX) Inc. tumbled 9.7 percent in early New York trading after Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. withdrew its unsolicited takeover bid for the company.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring next month retreated 0.3 percent to 1,908.1 at 7:25 a.m. in New York, after earlier advancing as much as 0.3 percent. The S&P 500 yesterday dropped 1 percent to the lowest level since May. Dow Jones Industrial Average contracts declined 44 points, or 0.3 percent, to 16,322 today.
“Ukraine is the obvious mover,” Ben Kumar, an investment manager who helps manage $7 billion at Seven Investment Management LLP in London, said. “Various companies when releasing their earnings in Europe, the chief executives have been coming out and saying Ukraine is hurting sales. That’s now got people in the U.S. worried because the S&P 500 is a pretty global market and if things are hurting big German manufacturing companies they are going to hurt U.S. companies as well.”
Source: Bloomberg
Read more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-06/u-s-stock-index-futures-little-changed-on-ukraine-fears.html
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