US STOCKS-Wall Street ends lower on worries over Georgia elections, virus surge

* FLIR jumps on $8 bln takeover deal
* Tesla shares hit record high on strong 2020 deliveries
* CBOE volatility index hits two-week high

(Updates to close, adds new comment)
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Shares on Wall Street closed
sharply lower on Monday, sliding from all-time peaks on the
first trading day of the year, as risk appetite ebbed amid
upcoming runoff elections in Georgia and the persistent surge in
coronavirus cases.
The Dow, which touched a record high earlier in the session
along with the S&P 500, was also dragged down by a more than 4%
fall in Boeing Co's BA.N shares after Bernstein cut its rating
to "underperform," citing concerns about cash flow.
All three main indexes hit two-week lows, with record highs
in the Dow and S&P 500 extending a 2020 rally fueled by monetary
stimulus and the start of vaccine rollouts.
The fate of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's agenda,
meanwhile, including rewriting the tax code, boosting stimulus
and infrastructure spending hinges firmly on Tuesday's twin
Senate races in the battleground state of Georgia that will
determine control of the chamber. Wall Street's fear gauge .VIX touched a two-week high on
Monday.
"Stocks are pulling back from a stunning year of gains,"
said Brian Reynolds, chief market strategist, at Reynolds
Strategy.
"We're starting off with a virus out of control. We'll
probably going to end 2021 with a virus that could be under
control by that time. How we get from start to finish will be
filled with frequent pullbacks because people will be looking at
short-term headlines," he added.
Total U.S. deaths from COVID-19 have reached more than
350,000. Almost all S&P sectors dropped with real estate .SPLRCR ,
utilities .SPLRCU and industrials .SPLRCI posting the
sharpest percentage declines. Consumer discretionary .SPLRD
and materials .SPLRCM hit all-time highs in early trading.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell
387.92 points, or 1.27%, to 30,218.56, the S&P 500 .SPX lost
56.08 points, or 1.49%, to 3,699.99 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC dropped 191.23 points, or 1.48%, to 12,697.06.
"Investors are at a point where they want to take a breather
while they assess all the different things coming in the new
year," said Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally
Invest, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
On the data front, U.S. manufacturing activity picked up at
its briskest pace in more than six years in December, a survey
showed on Monday. It comes on the heels of upbeat factory
activity surveys across Europe and Asia earlier in the day.
Some investors are cautious about the pace of economic
growth as U.S. jobless claims remain stubbornly high, while a
new round of pandemic-related restrictions last month and a new
variant of the coronavirus have cast a shadow on the outlook.
Tesla Inc's TSLA.O shares extended a meteoric rally to
scale a record high after the electric-car maker reported
better-than-expected vehicle deliveries in 2020. Shares of FLIR Systems Inc FLIR.O jumped after Teledyne
Technologies Inc TDY.N agreed to buy the thermal imaging
camera supplier for $8 billion in cash and stock. Teledyne's
shares dropped as well.