MARKET SNAPSHOT: U.S. Stocks: Futures Fall; Economic Data Mixed

By Anora Mahmudova and Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures pointed to a lower market open Thursday, as a mixed bag of earnings and economic data as well as renewed tensions between Russia and Ukraine weighed on sentiment.

Morgan Stanley's quarterly results topped expectations, but both Mattel and AutoNation were suffering following disappointing earnings.

In economic news, jobless claims were better than expected, but housing starts report fell short of expectations.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJU4) fell 35 points, or 0.2%, to 17,022, while those for the S&P 500 index (SPU4) dropped 8 points, or 0.4%, to 1,967. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index (NDU4) gave up 16 points, or 0.4%, to 3,907.

Earlier, a drop in futures accelerated following reports a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by missiles from a Russian plane. The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine said the incident took place late Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the U.S. unveiled a new round of sanctions against Russia, targeting companies such as oil giant Rosneft and Gazprombank ONO. The European Union said it will detail new sanctions against Russia by the end of this month. European stocks fell sharply on Thursday. Read: Russian stocks pounded after U.S. imposes new sanctions.

Ahead of the bell, shares of Morgan Stanley (MS) gained 1.3% after the company's profit and revenue for the second quarter beat Wall Street's projections.

Blackstone Group L.P. (BX) reported second quarter earnings that also topped profit estimates on the back of gains from selling assets in its private-equity business. The shares rose 2.7%.

Mattel (MAT) shares sank 7.8% as quarterly earnings were dragged lower by muted sales of Barbie dolls.

SanDisk (SNDK) shares fell 7.8% after the flash-memory maker's third-quarter revenue forecast was lighter than anticipated. Read more about the day's notable movers here.

Investors will monitor comments from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, who is slated to speak in Kentucky about monetary policy at 1:35 p.m. Eastern Time. Bullard said in a Bloomberg interview last week that a continued decline in U.S. unemployment could push inflation above the Fed's 2% target by the end of 2015. Bullard isn't a voting member of the Fed's policy-making committee.

In economic news, the number of people who applied for regular state unemployment-insurance benefits in the week that ended July 12 fell to the lowest level in nine weeks.

But construction on new U.S. homes tumbled in June to the slowest pace in nine months, led by drops for single-family homes and apartment.

A July reading on activity among regional manufacturers is slated for release at 10 a.m. Eastern by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Economists expect to see the result weaken to 16.5 from 17.8 in June, which was the highest level since September.

After trading closes Thursday, Google (GOOG) is expected to post earnings of $6.25 a share on revenue of $12.3 billion. Read NEED TO KNOW: Janet Yellen might disagree, but Amazon tapped as screaming buy.

In the commodities market, August crude-oil futures (CLQ4) rose $1.32 to $102.52 a barrel, and gold futures (GCQ4) picked up $1.40 to $1,301 an ounce.

Asian stocks overnight closed mixed, with Japan's Nikkei Average down 0.1%.

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