US STOCKS-Wall Street surges after upbeat economic data

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* Dow 1.25%, S&P 1.64%, Nasdaq 1.89%
* Kraft Heinz slumps after pulling FY forecast
* Symantec gains on Broadcom talks report
* AMD lands Alphabet, Twitter as customers
* Lyft , Uber jump on hints of end to price war

(Updates to early afternoon)
By Medha Singh and Arjun Panchadar
Aug 8 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were sharply
higher on Thursday as better-than-expected domestic and Chinese
data as well as a firming yuan offered some relief to investors
alarmed by a week of blow and counterblow between Beijing and
Washington over trade.
In corporate news, Kraft Heinz sank as much as 15.6% after
it pulled its full-year forecast and wrote down the value of
several business units by over $1 billion, capping a rough few
months for the company and making it the S&P 500's .SPX
biggest decliner.
U.S. data pointed to a robust labor market as the number of
Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits
unexpectedly fell last week, allaying some worries about a
recession and helping U.S. Treasury yields rise.
US/
That followed better-than-expected export numbers out of
China and some improvement for the country's yuan currency,
whose slide over the weekend spurred Wall Street's worst day so
far this year on Monday. CNY/ "There has been no material increase in the rhetoric out of
both the Trump administration or out of China and that's an
important element for allowing the markets again to recalibrate
and review the risks at hand," said Michael Hans, chief
investment officer at Clarfeld Citizens Private Wealth.
"This is a reflexive recovery because it's those areas that
had borne the brunt of the selling pressure which are bouncing
back."
The turbulence of the past week follows some hefty falls in
May and casts further doubt on the durability of a decade-long
stocks rally as President Donald Trump's trade war raised the
specter of a slide back into recession.
All the main S&P sector were higher on Thursday, with
technology shares .SPLRCT , which were at the heart of the
recent selloff, providing the biggest boost. The S&P 500 is on
course for its third day of gains, leaving it around 4% off a
record closing high hit last month.
Symantec Corp SYMC.O jumped 11.3% after sources said
chipmaker Broadcom Inc AVGO.O was in advanced talks to buy the
cybersecurity company's enterprise business. Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD.O gained 15.4% after the
chipmaker launched its second generation of processor chip and
said that it had landed Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google and
Twitter Inc TWTR.N as customers. Lyft Inc LYFT.O also advanced 4.9% after the ride-hailing
service raised its annual outlook and hinted at the end of its
price war with Uber Technologies Inc UBER.N . Uber, due to
report after the bell and a high-profile loser since its market
launch this year, rose 6.9%. Shares of Walt Disney Co DIS.N also rose 2.1% after Credit
Suisse upgraded its shares to "outperform" with one eye on the
imminent U.S. launch of video streaming service Disney+.
At 12:57 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 325.01 points, or 1.25%, at 26,332.08, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 47.17 points, or 1.64%, at 2,931.15. The Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC was up 148.31 points, or 1.89%, at 8,011.14.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.91-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and by a 3.31-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 37 new 52-week highs and two new
lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 70 new highs and 71 new lows.