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U.S. stocks narrowly fluctuate amid focus on Greek debt talks, earnings

Xinhua, February 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks were traded mixed midday Wednesday as Wall Street focused on Greek debt negotiations ahead of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

At noon, the Dow Jones was down 41.53 points, or 0.23 percent, to 17,827.23. The S&P shed 2.28 points, or 0.11 percent, to 2,066. 31. The Nasdaq Composite rose 16.34 points, or 0.34 percent, to 4, 803.99.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is expected to request a bridge agreement to cover the country's funding needs until autumn while the government is negotiating a final agreement with creditors on further debt relief.

U.S. weekly mortgage applications, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, were down 9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.

In corporate news, Apple's shares gained over 1.8 percent around midday, boosting the Nasdaq as the only major index trading higher. The shares of the tech giant closed at 122.02 U.S. dollars apiece Tuesday, and its market capital soared over 700 billion dollars, a record high.

Shares of Pepsi rose 1.93 percent after the beverage and snack giant released better-than-expected quarterly financial report. Pepsi reported Wednesday its core earnings per share of 1.12 dollars for the fourth quarter of 2014 and 4.63 dollars for the full year, on organic revenue growth of 5 percent for the quarter and 4 percent for the full year.

Time Warner posed Wednesday adjusted quarterly profit of 98 cents per share, beating investors' estimates. Its revenues increased 3 percent to 27.4 billion dollars for the whole 2014. The company's shares ticked up 0.09 percent at noon.

Thomson Reuters, however, missed estimates with adjusted quarterly earnings of 43 cents per share, with revenue also below estimates. However, the financial information provider expects its revenue to grow this year. Its shares dropped 3.66 percent.

Latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that S&P 500 companies' per-share earnings in the fourth quarter are expected to grow 6.7 percent year on year, while revenue growth is forecast to increase 1.9 percent. A total of 352 companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings for the fourth quarter of 2014 to date. Endite