US STOCKS-Wall St retreats as crude slump batters energy stocks

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* Oil stocks lead declines among sub-indexes
* Exxon, Chevron top decliners on Dow
* Amazon, Netflix up amid demand for "stay-at-home" stocks
* Indexes off: Dow 1.49%, S&P 500 1.11%, Nasdaq 0.52%

(Updates to open)
By Shreyashi Sanyal and C Nivedita
April 20 (Reuters) - A slide in energy stocks weighed on
Wall Street on Monday as crude prices crashed at the start of a
week packed with quarterly earnings reports and economic data
likely to underline the damage from the coronavirus outbreak.
The S&P 500 energy index .SPNY shed 2.8% and was on track
for its sixth slide in seven sessions as the U.S. West Texas
Intermediate (WTI) contract CLc1 fell 35% to its lowest since
1998 on concerns of oversupply. O/R
Exxon Mobil Corp XOM.N and Chevron CVX.N tumbled more
than 3% and were among the biggest decliners on the blue-chip
Dow Jones index .DJI .
All the major S&P 500 sub-indexes were trading lower, but
declines on the Nasdaq .IXIC were limited by Amazon.com Inc
AMZN.O and Netflix Inc NFLX.O - deemed "stay-at-home" stocks
as widespread lockdowns fueled demand for online streaming and
home delivery of groceries.
Wall Street's main indexes have rallied this month, with the
S&P 500 .SPX ending Friday with its biggest two-week
percentage gain since 1974 on a raft of global stimulus and
hopes the virus was nearing a peak in the United States.
Still, the benchmark index is about 15% below its all-time
high and analysts have warned of a deep economic slump from the
halt in business activity and millions of layoffs.
"Today is largely a give back of some of the previous gains
as people are trying to assess whether it's going to be six
months or nine months or 12 months until the economy is back on
regular footing," said Dev Kantesaria, founder portfolio manager
of hedge fund Valley Forge Capital Management in Wayne,
Pennsylvania.
After U.S. banks kicked off the quarterly earnings season
with painful forecasts for 2020, investors will keep a close
watch on reports from Delta Air Lines Inc DAL.N , Southwest
Airlines Co LUV.N and Netflix later in the week.
Overall, analysts expect earnings for S&P 500 firms to fall
13% in the first quarter, according to IBES data from Refinitiv,
while Goldman Sachs has predicted share buybacks will halve and
dividends will slide 23% in 2020.
At 10:18 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 361.83 points, or 1.49%, at 23,880.66, the S&P 500 .SPX
was down 31.91 points, or 1.11%, at 2,842.65 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 45.34 points, or 0.52%, at 8,604.81.
Hopes have also risen for a gradual reopening of the economy
after President Donald Trump cited signs of plateauing in the
virus outbreak last week and outlined new guidelines for states
to pull out of shutdowns.
But his plan was thin on details and left the decision
largely up to state governors. New York City Mayor Bill de
Blasio said on Monday it could take weeks if not months before
the country's most populous city reopens due to a lack of
widespread testing. "The recovery will be much slower than the market is
currently pricing in simply because social distancing measures
can be relaxed but not removed until we have a vaccine or a very
effective cure," said Andrea Cicione, head of strategy at TS
Lombard in London.
In economic news, surveys on April U.S. manufacturing and
services sectors are due on Thursday, while U.S. jobless claims
are forecast to have hit as many as 5 million in the week ended
April 18, on top of 22 million claims in the previous four
weeks.