US STOCKS-Wall St declines on China fears, weak profit expectations

* Chinese imports fall 20 pct in September

* Biotechs fall, leading decliners among S&P 500 sectors

* Indexes down: Dow 0.3 pct, S&P 0.7 pct, Nasdaq (NasdaqGS: NDAQ - news) 0.9 pct (Updates to close)

By Caroline Valetkevitch

Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) 13 (Reuters) - U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) . stocks fell on Tuesday, with the Dow snapping a seven-day winning streak, on renewed fears of slowing growth in China and another bout of selling in biotech shares.

Biotechs led the S&P 500 and Nasdaq lower and the S&P health care index, down 1.2 percent, had the biggest losses among S&P sectors, followed by industrials, down 1.2 percent. The Nasdaq Biotech Index was down 3.2 percent, extending recent declines.

Worries about third-quarter earnings reports continued to weigh on sentiment. S&P 500 companies are expected to report a nearly 5 percent fall in profit, the biggest decline in six years, according to Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news) data.

"There's a little nervousness about earnings reports that we'll be seeing over the next couple or three weeks," said John Carey, portfolio manager at Pioneer Investment Management in Boston.

"The international situation continues to weigh on people's minds, and commodities were weaker earlier. In the absence of any strong new economic data or blow-away type earnings results, people are still cautious, waiting for the Fed to decide on whether it's going to raise rates or not," he said.

After the bell on Tuesday, shares of Intel (Swiss: INTC.SW - news) were slightly higher in choppy trade following results.

Earlier in the day, data showed Chinese imports fell 20 percent in September due to weak domestic demand, indicating growth in the world's second-largest economy was sputtering.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 49.97 points, or 0.29 percent, to 17,081.89, the S&P 500 lost 13.77 points, or 0.68 percent, to 2,003.69 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 42.03 points, or 0.87 percent, to 4,796.61.

A devaluation of the yuan currency in late August triggered a steep selloff in global equities. A bounce back in commodities has helped stocks recover in recent sessions, as well as investors' bets that the Federal Reserve will keep rates near zero until next year.

On tap this week are results from the big banks and other earnings bellwethers, including Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) , Bank of America, and General Electric.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) of Ryder System (NYSE: R - news) were down 9.3 percent at $68.63 - the biggest percentage decliner in the S&P 500 - while FMC Corp was down 3.1 percent at $36.35, both following disappointing forecasts late Monday.

About 6.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the 7.5 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data. (Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Nick Zieminski)