US STOCKS-Wall St falls more slowly as investors parse coronavirus fears

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* Stocks pull back as NY monitors coronavirus cases
* U.S. health officials warn of pandemic
* Trump to speak on coronavirus at 6 p.m. ET
* Dow down 0.46%, S&P 0.38%, Nasdaq up 0.17%

(New throughout, updates to close)
By Sinéad Carew
New York, Feb 26 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 fell for a fifth
straight day on Wednesday and while its decline was slower than
the last few days, the session was volatile as investors reacted
to headlines about coronavirus and sought to gauge its economic
fallout.
After rising as much as 1.7% in the morning, the S&P 500 hit
a session low after health officials in Nassau County, New York,
said they were monitoring 83 people who visited China and may
have come in contact with the virus. Still, Governor Andrew
Cuomo said the state has had no confirmed cases. {nL2N2AQ192]
Adding to pressure was a warning from U.S. Food and Drug
Administration officials that the outbreak was on a path to
becoming a pandemic, according to a report. Earlier, stocks lost ground after Germany said it was
heading for a coronavirus epidemic and could no longer trace all
cases, and Norway confirmed its first case of the virus. For the
first time, the number of new infections outside China overtook
those inside the country, the source of the outbreak.
Trading volume was far more active than usual, yet some
investors were relieved the slide was slower. The S&P ended down
0.38%, compared with its 6.3% of losses in the previous two
sessions.
"The market's default reaction function is when in danger or
in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. That's what we've
seen in the past couple of days," said Brad McMillan, Chief
Investment Officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, an
independent broker-dealer in Waltham, Mass.
"The real story today was that it stopped going down fast
... news came in and the market thought about it and acted
appropriately by selling off a little but not too much," said
McMillan who estimates that equity investors have priced in two
quarters of global economic fallout from the virus.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 123.77 points,
or 0.46%, to 26,957.59, the S&P 500 .SPX dropped 11.82 points
to 3,116.39 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 15.16 points,
or 0.17%, to end at 8,980.78.
Of the S&P's 11 major sectors energy .SPNY was the biggest
laggard with an almost 3% drop, while technology .SPLRCT was
its outperformer with a 0.4% gain.
Many investors were cautious about making any big bets
without more clarity on the spread of the virus.
"We need to more information before markets have a further
correction or get comfortable things won't escalate further,"
said Jason Draho, head of Americas asset allocation at UBS
Global Wealth Management, New York.
"Markets will be very jumpy until there's increasing
confidence the virus is abating and that it won't be a global
pandemic," Draho said.
President Donald Trump, scheduled to hold a news conference
on the coronavirus at 630 P.M. ET (2330 GMT), accused cable TV
news channels of presenting the danger from the coronavirus in
as bad a light as possible and upsetting financial
markets. The Dow ended the day 8.8% below its recent record close,
reached Feb. 12 while the S&P 500 was just under 8% off its
record high reached last Wednesday. Nasdaq finished 8.5% below
its recent record.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.94-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.73-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 4 new 52-week highs and 50 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 23 new highs and 237 new lows.
On U.S. exchanges 11.86 billion shares changed hands, below
Tuesday's 12.33 billion, but well above the 8.23 billion average
for the last 20 sessions.