Wall Street mixed as Time Warner plunges

Trader Luigi Muccitelli, left, works with specialist Allison Gamba on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. File Photo / AP

Wall Street was mixed overnight as better-than-expected US trade data offset rising concern Russia might invade Ukraine on a "humanitarian" pretext.

Tension in Ukraine is building. Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March, has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border, according to NATO.

"We're not going to guess what's on Russia's mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground - and that is of great concern," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in an emailed statement, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, investors received promising signs about the pace of recovery in the US. A report showing the US trade deficit narrowed more than expected in June underpinned optimism that the world's largest economy continues to gather steam.

"The improvement in June could mean a modest upward revision to the second-quarter GDP estimate," Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York, told Reuters. "It also implies a fairly strong hand-off to third-quarter GDP."

Wall Street was little changed, following Tuesday's drop. In afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a 0.01 per cent gain, as did the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, while the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.18 per cent.

In the Dow, gains in Procter & Gamble and General Electric, both up 1.7 per cent, offset declines in shares of Boeing and AT&T, down 2.6 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively.

Shares of Time Warner plunged, last down 12.3 per cent, after Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox withdrew its unsolicited takeover offer for the company. Shares of Fox climbed 3.2 per cent.

"Time Warner management and its board refused to engage with us to explore an offer which was highly compelling," CEO Rupert Murdoch said in a statement. "Additionally, the reaction in our share price since our proposal was made undervalues our stock and makes the transaction unattractive to Fox shareholders."

Time Warner's latest quarterly results, which exceeded expectations, failed to assuage its shareholders. Fox is set to release its latest results after the closing bell.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the session with a 0.9 per cent slide from the previous close. The UK's FTSE 100 Index fell 0.7 per cent, as did Germany's DAX. France's CAC 40 fell 0.6 per cent.

Here, the latest data highlighted ongoing concern about the strength of the recovery in euro-zone economies.

A report showed that German factory orders unexpectedly fell in June, sliding 3.2 per cent, while in Italy a report showed that the country's gross domestic product unexpectedly shrank in the second quarter, contracting 0.2 per cent.

That's the second contraction in as many quarters for Italy, indicating the country has fallen back into recession amid signs the government is struggling to enact the structural changes needed to bolster its longer-term prospects.

Those reports arrived just in time before European Central Bank policy makers gather on Thursday.

"Evidence is mounting that risks to the ECB's economic outlook are to the downside," Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, told Bloomberg News.