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U.S. stocks followed European markets down amid concern that the coronavirus could hurt the global economy.
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 The utilities sector is slipping Monday, putting it on track to snap a long winning streak, although the conditions that helped prolong the win streak--falling Treasury yields and coronavirus-induced stock market weakness--accelerated. The Dow Jones Utility Average slipped 0.2%, after rising 7.3% amid a 12-session win streak through Friday. That win streak is the longest such streak since the 12-day stretch ending July 15, 1992. The SPDR Utilities Select Sector ETF eased 0.3% to put it in danger of snapping an 11-day win streak, which would be the longest since the 12-day win streak ending June 2, 2017. Among the more-active joint components, shares of AES Corp. lost 1.6%, Exelon Corp. gave up 0.5% and CenterPoint Energy Inc. fell 0.7%, while Southern Co. gained 0.4%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 331 points, or 1.1%, toward a fifth-straight decline, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note lost 7.5 basis points to a 3 1/2-month low of 1.606%. Utilities tend to perform well when Treasury yields fall, because investors tend to treat the sector as a bond proxy given the companies' relatively high dividend and stable earnings. That also makes utilities a defensive sector. The energy sector ETF's dividend yield is 2.80%, compared with the implied yield for the S&P 500 of 1.84%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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Fears of a growing coronavirus outbreak from Wuhan, China, are causing a sell-off of airline and cruise shares.
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 U.S. stocks fell more than 1% on Monday as investors worried about the economic fallout of the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak in China that has prompted the country to extend the Lunar New Year holidays and businesses to close some operations.
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 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks slumped and bonds rallied as intensifying concern over the impact of the deadly coronavirus rattled markets around the world.The S&P 500 Index slid the most in almost four months, with tech and energy companies leading losses. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbled about 3%. China-exposed U.S. names Wynn Resorts Ltd. and Nvidia Corp. plunged at least 4% and airlines sank. European shares fell as much as 2.4%.Chinese markets are said to resume trading after the Lunar New Year holiday on Feb. 3, but assets that track the country's largest stocks took a nosedive. The iShares MSCI China ETF and Invesco China Technology ETF dropped at least 4%. The offshore yuan slid toward the lowest this year.Wall Street Rushes to Price-In Virus Fallout Across Options LandThe flight to safety, which comes ahead of this week's Federal Reserve meeting, saw volumes in Treasury futures jump to double their regular levels in Asia. The yield on 10-year U.S. bonds dropped to the lowest since October. Similar-maturity German securities extended their advance to the longest in almost six months. The Swiss franc, the Japanese yen and gold paced gains in haven assets. Oil slipped to a more than three-month low.Fears that China has failed to contain the pneumonia-like virus -- which has killed at least 80 people and infected more than 2,700 -- is spurring caution at the start of a week jam-packed with earnings. And such is the nervousness over the severity of the disease that money markets brought f
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