U.S. stock futures fell, after equities slipped to a two-month low, amid concern that the Ukraine crisis will escalate and as Sprint Corp. and Time Warner (TWX) Inc. tumbled on merger news. Sprint slid 13 percent after a person with knowledge of the matter said it ended talks to acquire T-Mobile US Inc. Time Warner Inc. tumbled 13 percent after Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. withdrew its unsolicited takeover bid for the company. Groupon Inc. slumped 17 percent after its third-quarter earnings trailed analysts’ estimates. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring next month retreated 0.3 percent to 1,908.1 at 8:32 a.m. in New York. The S&P 500 dropped 1 percent yesterday to the lowest level since May. Dow Jones Industrial Average contracts declined 41 points, or 0.3 percent, to 16,325 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.� NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said that Russia has amassed about 20,000 troops along its border with eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing no sign of backing down over Ukraine, and said his government has proposed retaliatory measures after the U.S. and the European Union tightened sanctions last week. Record Level The S&P 500 has lost more than 3.4 percent since reaching a record of 1,987.98 on July 24 and is about 70 points from erasing its gain for the year. The benchmark gauge tumbled 2.7 percent last week, the most since June 2012, as companies around the globe posted disappointing results, Argentina defaulted and Banco Espirito Santo SA was ordered to raise capital. Stocks have also been weighed down by concerns that the improving economy may force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates sooner than expected. Data last week showed U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 4 percent annual pace in the second quarter, confirming the Fed’s view that a first-quarter contraction was transitory. Fed Stimulus The S&P 500 has soared 184 percent since the start of the bull market in March 2009, boosted by three rounds of central bank stimulus and better-than-forecast corporate earnings. The benchmark equity gauge has gone without a 10 percent correction since 2011. It trades at 17.4 times the reported earnings of its companies, after reaching the highest level since 2010 in June. Viacom Inc. and Ralph Lauren Corp. are among 25 S&P 500 companies reporting earnings today. About 75 percent of those that have posted results this season have beaten analysts’ estimates for profit, while 64 percent exceeded sales projections, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Profit probably rose 9.4 percent in the second quarter, while sales gained 4.2 percent, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sprint slid 13 percent to $6.32. Regulatory concerns outweighed the potential benefits of a merger with T-Mobile US that would combine the third and fourth-largest U.S. wireless carriers, according to the person with knowledge of the matter. T-Mobile retreated 7.5 percent to $31.35. Groupon Slides Groupon (GRPN) slumped 17 percent to $5.90. The company forecast third-quarter earnings of no more than 2 cents a share, excluding some items, compared with the average analyst estimate of 3 cents a share. Time Warner dropped 13 percent to $74.34 as Murdoch’s Fox withdrew its $75 billion offer. The billionaire chairman of Fox gave up after Time Warner’s board refused to engage in talks and Fox’s stock price slid 11 percent since the offer became public. Time Warner also reported earnings that beat estimates and said it plans to buy back $5 billion of its shares. Twenty-First Century Fox climbed 6.1 percent to $33.20. Walgreen Co. (WAG) retreated 12 percent to $60.66. The biggest U.S. drugstore chain said it will pay about $5.29 billion in cash plus $10 billion in Walgreen stock for the shares in Alliance Boots it doesn’t already hold. Walgreen owns 45 percent of Bern, Switzerland-based Alliance Boots, which has pharmacy and beauty stores in Europe. To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Morgan in Frankfurt at jmorgan157@bloomberg.net; Joseph Ciolli in New York at jciolli@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net Jeff Sutherland

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