US STOCKS-S&P 500, Dow sink 3% to late-Sept lows on virus, election worry

* Airlines, hotels down on fears of fresh pandemic curbs
* GE jumps on surprise profit, positive cash flow
* Indexes down: Dow and S&P 2.7%, Nasdaq 3%
* Down down 2.89%, S&P 500 2.84% and Nasdaq 2.97%

(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments
to afternoon; changes byline and adds NEW YORK dateline)
By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, Oct 28 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Dow slumped
on Wednesday to their lowest levels since late September, as
coronavirus cases climbed globally and investors also worried
about the possiblity of a contested U.S. presidential election
next week.
A spiraling pandemic and the failure to approve new fiscal
stimulus before the Nov. 3 election put the blue-chip Dow on
track to close at its lowest since early August. All three major
indexes fell about 3%.
Twelve U.S. states set records for hospitalized COVID-19
patients on Tuesday, while Germany announced plans to shut large
swathes of public life for a month and France prepared tighter
controls as the pandemic surged across Europe. "Obviously the virus is out of control. It's spiking, it's
bad," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star
Investment Management Corp in Chicago. "The concept that ...
it's going to disappear is just a faulty assumption."
Shares of hotels, airlines and other companies sensitive to
COVID-19-related turmoil fell. Wynn Resorts WYNN.O slid 3.6%
and the S&P 1500 airlines index .SPCOMAIR declining 4.0%. The
energy index .SPNY fell as oil prices tumbled on fears of a
deeper drop in fuel demand. O/R
With just six days to the election, Wall Street's fear gauge
.VIX spiked to its highest level since July 15, also on
concerns that a winner might not be declared the night of Nov. 3
due to a delay in counting the huge volume of mail-in ballots.

Democratic challenger Biden leads President Donald Trump
nationally by 10 percentage points, according to the
Reuters/Ipsos poll, but the competition is tighter in swing
states, which will decide the victor. Investors are worried about whether the election will be
contested; a clear "blue wave" that gives Biden and his
Democrats control of the White House and Congress; or Trump's
re-election, said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at
Independent Advisor Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina.
"As people run through the likely scenarios of what could
happen with the election, there's no short-term good answer," he
said.
Losses were broad-based with technology stocks .SPLRCT
weighing the most.
The Big Tech companies - Apple AAPL.O , Alphabet GOOGL.O ,
Amazon AMZN.O and Facebook FB.O - which are due to report
results on Thursday, fell between 3% and 4.7%, weighing the most
on the S&P 500.
At 2:27 p.m. ET (1827 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average
.DJI fell 792.7 points, or 2.89%, to 26,670.49. The S&P 500
.SPX lost 96.32 points, or 2.84%, to 3,294.36 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC dropped 339.66 points, or 2.97%, to 11,091.70.
Of the 206 S&P 500 companies that have reported
third-quarter earnings so far, about 83% have topped
expectations, according to Refinitiv data. But earnings on
average are expected to fall 14.8% from a year earlier.
Microsoft Corp 's MSFT.O quarterly results surpassed
analysts targets, benefiting from a pandemic-driven shift to
working from home and online learning. Its shares, however,
fell about 4% after rising nearly 35% so far this year.
General Electric Co GE.N was one bright spot, jumping 8%
after posting a surprise quarterly profit and a positive cash
flow on the back of cost cuts and improvements in its power and
renewable energy businesses. GE was the largest
percentage gainer on the S&P 500.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
9.52-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 6.49-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week highs and eight new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 13 new highs and 101 new lows.