US STOCKS-Wall St slumps as virus cases soar, stimulus remains elusive

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* Travel-related stocks fall as COVID-19 cases soar
* Hasbro falls after reporting quarterly results
* Oracle down as rival SAP scraps medium-term margin goals
* Indexes down: Dow 1.8%, S&P 1.4%, Nasdaq 0.7%

(Adds comment, details; updates prices)
By Medha Singh and Shivani Kumaresan
Oct 26 (Reuters) - Wall Street's indexes fell sharply on
Monday as soaring coronavirus cases and a deadlock in Washington
over the next fiscal aid bill darkened the economic outlook in
the run up to the Nov. 3 presidential election.
New infections have touched record levels in the United
States, with El Paso in Texas asking citizens to stay at home
for the next two weeks. In Europe, Italy and Spain imposed new
restrictions. Travel-related stocks that are vulnerable to COVID-19
related curbs dropped. The S&P 1500 airlines index .SPCOMAIR
fell 3.7% and cruise line operators Carnival Corp CCL.N and
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd RCL.N shed more than 9% each.
"The fear of what the increasing case loads might do to the
U.S. economy is driving the market today," said Marc Chaikin,
founder of Chaikin Analytics, a quantitative investment research
firm, Philadelphia.
Energy .SPNY index fell as oil prices shed over 3% on
demand concerns and other economically-sensitive industrials
.SPLRCI and financials .SPSY sectors posted the steepest
percentage declines among S&P sectors. (O/R)
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on
Monday there were a number of areas in House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's COVID-19 relief plan that President Donald Trump cannot
accept. "The harsh reality is it's going to be very difficult to get
as much as the $2 trillion deal even if they have something
today or tomorrow," said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist
at LPL Financial, North Carolina.
"It's not going to happen until after the election."
Wall Street's fear gauge .VIX hit a five-week high as 60
million Americans cast their ballots in a record breaking early
turnout as Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden enter
their final week of campaigning. It is also one of the busiest weeks of the third-quarter
earnings season that will see results from mega-cap U.S. tech
firms including Apple Inc AAPL.O , Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O ,
Google-parent Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O and Facebook Inc FB.O .
The tech sector .SPLRCT , which includes Apple, is among
the only three sectors apart from healthcare .SPXHC and
consumer staples .SPLRCS that is expected to post an increase
in profit compared to a year earlier.
Of the 139 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported
earnings so far, 83.5% of them have beaten Wall Street
expectations, according to Refinitiv data.
At 10:44 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
fell 520.61 points, or 1.84%, to 27,814.96, the S&P 500 .SPX
lost 48.04 points, or 1.39%, to 3,417.35 and the Nasdaq .IXIC
lost 84.07 points, or 0.73%, to 11,464.21.
Software company Oracle Corp ORCL.N fell about 5% after
its German rival SAP SAPG.DE abandoned medium-term
profitability targets and cautioned its business would take
longer than expected to recover from the pandemic hit.

Hasbro Inc HAS.O fell about 9% despite beating analysts'
estimates for quarterly revenue and profit. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones by 6.6-to-1 on
the NYSE and 0.3-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded three new 52-week highs and one new
low, while the Nasdaq recorded 30 new highs and 30 new lows.