US STOCKS-Dow sheds 800 points as pandemic fears grip Wall Street

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* Rate-sensitive bank stocks, high-growth tech shares slide
* Wall Street's fear gauge surges to six-month high
* Health insurers fall after Bernie Sanders' Nevada victory
* Indexes drop: Dow 2.64%, S&P 2.51%, Nasdaq 2.93%

(Updates to open)
By Medha Singh
Feb 24 (Reuters) - The Dow Jones Industrials shed 800 points
on Monday as investors scurried to safer assets after a sharp
rise in coronavirus cases outside China fueled fears of a bigger
impact to global growth.
Gold rose to a seven-year high and the inversion between the
3-month and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields deepened as a rise in
cases in Iran, Italy and South Korea over the weekend fanned
fears of a pandemic. An inversion of the curve is a classic
recession signal. US/
All of the Dow's 30 blue-chip members, as well as the 11
major S&P sectors were in the red. Technology stocks .SPLRCT
dropped 3.1% and were the biggest drag on the benchmark index.
Defensive utilities .SPLRCU and real estate .SPSLRCR posted
the smallest declines.
Apple Inc APPL.O slid 3.5% as data showed sales of
smartphones in China tumbled by more than a third in January.
Last week, Wall Street's main indexes notched record highs,
partly on optimism that the global economy would be able to snap
back after an initial hit, supported by central banks.
"Some people are re-assessing the extent to which China is
being damaged by the spread of the virus and, more broadly,
whether other parts of world will get contagion effects of
that," said Nitesh Shah, director of research at WisdomTree.
Chipmakers, which heavily rely on China for revenue, were
among the worst performers, with the Philadelphia SE
Semiconductor index .SOX down 4.2%.
Interest rate-sensitive banks .SPXBK shed 2.7%, while the
CBOE Volatility Index .VIX , a barometer of expected near-term
market volatility, jumped to a six-month high.
At 9:55 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 764.01 points, or 2.64%, at 28,228.40, the S&P 500 .SPX
was down 83.88 points, or 2.51%, at 3,253.87. The Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 280.96 points, or 2.93%, at 9,295.63.
Health insurers such as UnitedHealth Group Inc UNH.N , CVS
Health Corp CVS.N and Cigna Corp CI.N dropped between 3% and
4.8% as Bernie Sanders, who supports the elimination of private
health insurance, strengthened his position for the Democratic
presidential nomination with a decisive victory in the Nevada
caucuses. In a rare bright spot, Gilead Sciences Inc GILD.O , whose
antiviral remdesivir has shown promise in monkeys infected by a
related coronavirus, rose 5.8%.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 8.29-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE. Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a
9.47-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded six new 52-week highs and 17 new
lows, while the Nasdaq recorded nine new highs and 112 new lows.