US STOCKS-Futures lower as China virus outbreak, growth worries sour mood

* Airlines, travel stocks hit by China virus fears
* Morgan Stanley drops after Citi downgrade
* Halliburton slips after disclosing $2.2 bln charge
* Futures down: Dow 0.21%, S&P 0.30%, Nasdaq 0.34%

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By Sruthi Shankar
Jan 21 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures followed Asian
and European markets lower on Tuesday as worries about the
fallout from a deadly virus outbreak in China and a gloomy
growth outlook from the IMF looked set to stall a record rally
on Wall Street.
Officials 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 that killed
nearly 800 people in 2002-03. With the virus spreading just ahead of 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 about 2% in premarket trading.
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 more than 5%.
"That (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."
A top International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said on
Monday that a slowdown in global growth appears to have bottomed
out, but there is no rebound in sight. The IMF trimmed its
global growth forecasts for 2020 and 2021. The developments weighed on U.S. investors returning from a
long holiday weekend. Strong economic data, the signing of the
Phase 1 U.S.-China trade deal and an upbeat start to
fourth-quarter earnings season had sent Wall Street to new
all-time highs on Friday.
However, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the
Wall Street Journal that the Phase 2 trade deal with China would
not necessarily be a "big bang" that removes all existing
tariffs. At 8:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis 1YMcv1 were down 62 points,
or 0.21%. S&P 500 e-minis EScv1 were down 10 points, or 0.3%
and Nasdaq 100 e-minis NQcv1 were down 30.75 points, or 0.34%.
Halliburton Co HAL.N slipped 0.9% after the oilfield
service provider disclosed a $2.2 billion charge to earnings as
weakening North American shale activity continued to hit the
industry. Morgan Stanley MS.N slid 1.9% after Citigroup downgraded
the stock to "neutral", saying the shares were fairly valued.