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* Travel stocks hit by extended Lunar New Year holidays
* Banks follow U.S. Treasury yields lower
* Crude slips below $60, energy shares down
* Indexes down: Dow 1.39%, S&P 1.42%, Nasdaq 1.80%
(Updates to open)
By Sruthi Shankar
Jan 27 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell more than 1% on Monday
as investors worried about the economic fallout of the
fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak in China that has prompted
the country to extend the Lunar New Year holidays and businesses
to close some operations.
The benchmark S&P 500 was jolted off record highs last week
as China locked down several cities and curbed travel, reminding
investors of the deadly SARS virus that killed nearly 800 people
in 2002-03 and cost the global economy billions.
Travel-related stocks, including airlines, casinos and
hotels, were the worst-hit on Wall Street, while shares of tech
heavyweights that enjoyed a strong rally recently dragged
markets lower.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Alphabet Inc
GOOGL.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O dropped between 1.5% and
2.6%.
Wynn Resorts Ltd WYNN.O , Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd
MLCO.O and Las Vegas Sands Corp LVS.N , which have large
operations in China, slid between 4% and 7%. United Airlines
Holdings Inc UAL.O and American Airlines Group Inc AAL.O
fell 4.5% and 6.6%, respectively.
The iShares China Large-Cap ETF shed FXI.P 4.1%.
Yum China Holdings Inc YUMC.N dropped 5.0% after the
company said it had temporarily closed some of its KFC and Pizza
Hut stores in Wuhan. The death toll from the outbreak in China rose to 81 on
Monday and a small number of cases linked to people who
travelled from Wuhan have been confirmed in more than 10
countries, including Thailand, France, Japan and the United
States. Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility index .VIX
jumped to its highest since Oct. 10.
"The coronavirus will not validate or invalidate the present
market multiple, it will just elevate volatility due to the
embedded uncertainty of things," David Bahnsen, chief investment
officer of The Bahnsen Group, wrote in a client note.
"The Dow is up a stunning 3,000 points in just over three
months – it hardly needs an excuse to see volatility elevated."
The rush to safe haven assets sank U.S. Treasury yields to
three-month lows, putting pressure on shares of Bank of America
Corp BAC.N , Citigroup Inc C.N and JPMorgan Chase & Co
JPM.N . US/
At 10:11 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
dropped 1.39% to 28,587.46.
The S&P 500 .SPX fell 1.42% to 3,248.71 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 1.80% at 9,147.23.
The S&P energy index .SPNY dropped 2.0% as crude price
fell below $60 per barrel on fears of slowing oil demand
following the outbreak. O/R
Defensive sectors such as consumer staples .SPLRCS , real
estate .SPLRCR and utilities .SPLRCU posted minimal losses.
Fourth-quarter earnings season will kick into high gear this
week with 141 of the S&P 500 companies expected to report this
week including Apple, Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Boeing Co
BA.N . No.1 U.S. homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc DHI.N rose 2.7%
after raising the upper end of its forecast for full-year home
sales. Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 6.17-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 5.13-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 16 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows,
while the Nasdaq recorded 20 new highs and 68 new lows.