By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Wall Street edged lower in early trade on Tuesday but pared premarket losses caused by a global wave of selling on fears of a possible epidemic in China.
Authorities have now confirmed six deaths from the so-called coronavirus, a pneumonia-like disease that is capable of being transmitted from person to person. The outbreak, which started in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has shown signs of spreading throughout the country, triggering fears of a repeat of the 2002 SARS epidemic.
Airline stocks were particularly hard hit, with the ADRs of China Eastern (NYSE:CEA) and China Southern (NYSE:ZNH)Airlines fell 11.2% and 9.6% respectively on fears that an epidemic could hit passenger traffic. United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) stock was the worst hit U.S. flyer, falling 2.6%, while Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) stock fell 1.6% and American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) stock fell 2.0% by 10 AM ET (1500 GMT).
The Dow Jones Industrial Index lost 41 points, or 0.1%, while the S&P 500 fell 8 points, or 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite also fell 0.1%.
Elsewhere, Uber (NYSE:UBER) rose 2.8% to its highest since August after announcing it would retreat from its loss-making food delivery business in India. It’s selling the business to local rival Zomato in return for a 9.99% stake that will allow it to reap any eventual upside to a market that has yet to deliver decent returns.
Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) stock edged down 0.3% after the company said it will move up the scheduled launch of its Disney+ streaming service in most of western Europe by a week. The service will now hit Britain and Germany on March 24.
The company is under pressure to establish itself before rival streaming services from Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and Apple (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:AAPL) can gain decisive levels of market share. Market leader Netflix (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:NFLX) is due to report earnings after the close on Tuesday.
Earlier, Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) stock rose 1.5% to its highest in nearly two weeks, after the oilfield services company beat consensus forecasts for adjusted earnings by some 10% in the last quarter of the year. As with rival Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB), the group’s international performance rescued a quarter dominated at home by shale drillers cutting back on their investment spending. That led to the company taking a $2.2 billion charge, resulting in a net loss of $1.7 billion. And in Canada, Spin Master (OTC:SNMSF), the maker of children's toys and other entertainment products, fell 18% after saying it now expects sales to fall 1% this year, instead of growing slightly.
In other markets, U.S. crude oil futures fell 0.3% on fears for the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on airline travel and overall growth in China. Gold futures fell 0.5% to $1,552.05 a troy ounce, while the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of developed market currencies, gave up some of Monday’s gains to trade down 0.1% at 97.265.