US STOCKS-Wall St rally pauses amid China virus outbreak, growth fears

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* Airlines, travel stocks hit by China virus fears
* Morgan Stanley drops after Citi downgrade
* Halliburton up after profit beats estimates
* Indexes down: Dow 0.15%, S&P 0.23%, Nasdaq 0.09%

(Updates to open)
By Sruthi Shankar
Jan 21 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes slipped on Tuesday as
worries about the fallout from a deadly virus outbreak in China
and a gloomy growth outlook from the IMF paused a record-setting
rally on Wall Street.
The developments soured the mood for U.S. investors
returning from a long holiday weekend. Strong data, the signing
of the Phase 1 U.S.-China trade deal and an upbeat start to
fourth-quarter earnings season had sent the main indexes to
fresh highs on Friday.
Chinese officials on Tuesday confirmed the new coronavirus
outbreak took six lives and that it could spread between humans,
stoking fears of a global pandemic and reviving memories of
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) — another coronavirus
outbreak that killed nearly 800 people in 2002-03. With the virus spreading just ahead of the Chinese New Year
holidays, travel stocks including Delta Air Lines Inc DAL.N ,
United Airlines Holdings Inc UAL.O and American Airlines Group
Inc AAL.O fell between 1.5% and 2.6%.
Hotel and casino operators Las Vegas Sands Corp LVS.N and
Wynn Resorts Ltd WYNN.O , both of which have large operations
in China, dropped about 5%.
Booking.com owner Booking Holdings BKNG.O and Tripadvisor
TRIP.O both fell more than 2%.
"(The virus outbreak in China) seems to be the biggest
negative," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in
St. Petersburg, Florida.
"But it's more of a global sentiment. We may see U.S.
markets try to spit it out because it doesn't have that much of
an impact on U.S. economy."
At 10:09 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was down 0.15% at 29,302.69. The S&P 500 .SPX fell 0.23% to
3,322.12 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC slipped 0.09% to
9,380.87.
Another cause for concern was the International Monetary
Fund trimming its global growth forecasts for 2020 and 2021. IMF
Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Monday that while
a slowdown in global growth appeared to have bottomed out, there
was no rebound in sight. Halliburton Co HAL.N rose 2.2% after the oilfield service
provider beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly adjusted
earnings. Morgan Stanley MS.N slid 2.8% after Citigroup downgraded
the stock to "neutral", saying the shares were fairly valued.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.72-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 1.37-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 66 new 52-week highs and no new lows,
while the Nasdaq recorded 86 new highs and 15 new lows.