NEW YORK — The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was little changed Wednesday, after U.S. equities slipped to a two-month low Tuesday, and as declines in Sprint and Time Warner on failed deals offset gains in consumer-staples shares.

Sprint slid 19 percent after a deal to merge with T-Mobile US collapsed. Time Warner tumbled 13 percent after Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox withdrew its unsolicited takeover bid. Molson Coors Brewing and Kellogg paced gains in consumer-staples shares.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose less than 1 point to 1,920.24. The gauge erased a loss earlier in the day after dropping below its average level for the past 100 days. The Dow Jones industrial average added 13.87 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 16,443.34. About 6.5 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges Wednesday, 12 percent above the three-month average.

The S&P 500 slid 1 percent Tuesday to the lowest level since May as tensions escalated over Ukraine. The benchmark gauge has lost 3.4 percent since reaching a record of 1,987.98 on July 24. It tumbled the most since June 2012 last week as companies around the globe posted disappointing results, Argentina defaulted and Banco Espirito Santo SA was ordered to raise capital.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing no sign of backing down over Ukraine. He ordered restrictions on food imports to strike back at the United States and other countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia over the turmoil in Ukraine. NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said Russia has amassed about 20,000 troops along its border with eastern Ukraine.

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.

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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.

Keurig Green Mountain and Prudential Financial were among 25 S&P 500 companies reporting earnings Wednesday. 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.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index, which usually moves in the opposite direction to the S&P 500, fell 3 percent to 16.37 Wednesday. The VIX soared 34 percent last week, the most since January.

Four out of 10 major industries in the S&P 500 advanced. Consumer-staples companies added 0.9 percent. Phone and utility shares dropped 1.3 percent.

Sprint slid 19 percent, the most ever. 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, a person familiar with the talks said. Sprint also named Marcelo Claure, the founder of mobile-phone distributor Brightstar, as its new chief executive officer.

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T-Mobile retreated 8.4 percent.

Time Warner dropped 13 percent, the most since 2008, 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.

Fox climbed 3.3 percent as it authorized a $6 billion buyback plan. The company also reported after the close of regular trading that fourth-quarter profit beat analysts’ estimates.

Walgreen retreated 14 percent for its worst performance since 2007. The biggest U.S. drugstore chain said it will pay about $15.3 billion for the shares in Alliance Boots it doesn’t already hold, and won’t use the deal to move its tax address abroad.

Walgreen, which considered re-domiciling in Switzerland to lower its tax rate, has come under political pressure not to do a so-called tax inversion. U.S.-based companies, including drugmakers AbbVie and Pfizer, have struck or attempted deals to cut their own rates by establishing their tax headquarters abroad.

Groupon slumped 13 percent. 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.

Cognizant Technology Solutions tumbled 13 percent, the most in more than two years. The provider of outsourcing services lowered its annual revenue forecast as tech-service deals took longer to close amid weakness in certain U.S. and U.K.-based customers.

Bank of America gained 1.3 percent. The second-biggest U.S. lender raised its quarterly dividend to 5 cents a share and dropped plans to buy back stock after the Fed approved its resubmitted capital plan for 2014.

The dividend increase, from 1 cent per share, was postponed in April after the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company said it made an error in its original Fed submission.


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