US STOCKS-Wall St set to open lower as virus cases surge, stimulus doubts weighs

(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* 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
* Futures down: Dow and S&P 500 about 1%, Nasdaq 0.9%

(Adds comment, details; updates prices)
By Medha Singh and Shivani Kumaresan
Oct 26 (Reuters) - Wall Street was set to start the week on
a dour note 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 Nov. 3 presidential
elections.
New infections touched record levels in the United States
recently, 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 news
including American Airlines AAL.O , United Airlines Holdings
UAL.O and Booking Holdings Inc BKNG.O fell between 2% and
2.8% before the bell.
"The continued spikes in coronavirus globally with the
shutdowns that we are seeing in Europe over the weekend are
adding to some of the pre-market jitters," said Ryan Detrick,
senior market strategist at LPL Financial, North Carolina.
Wall Street's main indexes finished last week lower 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 its going to be very difficult to get
as much as the $2 trillion deal even if they have something
today or tomorrow. It's not going to happen until after the
election," Detrick said.
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 full week of
campaigning. It is also one of the busiest week of 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 08:32 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis 1YMcv1 were down 1.01% at
27,900 points and the S&P 500 E-minis EScv1 fell 0.96% to
3,418.5 points. Nasdaq 100 E-minis NQcv1 skid 0.88% to 11,561
points.
Software company Oracle Corp ORCL.N fell 2.8% 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 3% despite beating analysts'
estimates for quarterly revenue and profit.