US STOCKS-Wall St slumps on rising virus cases, fading stimulus hopes

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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 1.3%, S&P 1%, Nasdaq 0.3%

(Updates to market open)
By Medha Singh and Shivani Kumaresan
Oct 26 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell sharply on Monday as
surging coronavirus cases and a stalemate 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 including American Airlines AAL.O , United
Airlines Holdings UAL.O and Booking Holdings Inc BKNG.O fell
between 3% and 4.5%.
All major S&P sectors were trading lower with
economically-sensitive energy .SPNY , industrials .SPLRCI and
financials .SPSY recording the steepest percentage declines.
Wall Street's main indexes had ended lower last week as
investors closely monitored talks over the next round of fiscal
package, while economic data pointed to a stalling recovery.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday said the Trump
administration was reviewing the latest proposal for COVID-19
relief over the weekend and that she expected a response on
Monday. "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."
Meanwhile, more than 59.1 million Americans have already
voted in person or by mail as President Donald Trump and
Democratic challenger Joe Biden enter their final week of
campaigning. It is also one of the busiest week 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 .
Of the 135 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported
earnings so far, 83.7% of them have beaten Wall Street
expectations, according to Refinitiv data.
At 09:41 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
fell 367.31 points, or 1.32%, to 27,968.26, the S&P 500 index
.SPX lost 32.08 points, or 0.93%, to 3,433.31 and the Nasdaq
Composite index .IXIC lost 34.94 points, or 0.30%, to
11,513.34.
Software company Oracle Corp ORCL.N fell 3% 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 7% 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 two new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 20 new highs and 10 new lows.