US STOCKS-Dow hits milestone, S&P breaks record high on tech rally

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* Fall in Treasury yields buoys mega-cap tech stocks
* BlackRock rises as quarterly profit beats estimates
* U.S. retail sales jump, jobless claims fall
* Indexes up: Dow 0.9%, S&P 500 1.11%, Nasdaq 1.31%

(Adds closing prices)
By David French, Shivani Kumaresan and Shreyashi Sanyal
April 15 (Reuters) - The Dow industrials .DJI closed above
34,000 for the first time on Thursday as the blue-chip benchmark
and S&P 500 .SPX posted fresh record highs on a tech stock
rally fueled by falling bond yields and strong March U.S. retail
sales.
The S&P 500 scored its second closing high this week, and
the Dow surpassed its previous peak on April 9. The Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC finished above 14,000 for the first time since
Feb. 16 and is now down less than 1% from its Feb. 12 record
high ending.
The S&P information technology .SPLRCT sector also hit an
all-time high. The benchmark and the communication services
.SPLRCL index were buoyed by big tech names, including Apple
Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Facebook Inc FB.O ,
which gained between 1.5% and 1.9%.
"Even though valuations are pretty high, you've got a lot of
confidence the big tech giants are going to continue to be able
to deliver enough cash flow to justify those valuations," said
Tim Murray, a T. Rowe Price Associates capital markets
strategist.
Helping draw in cash for such names is the fact Treasury
yields, after spiking upwards at the end of March, have been in
retreat as investors increasingly accept the Federal Reserve's
assurances on maintaining an accommodative monetary policy
despite higher inflation.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield US10YT=RR slipped
below 1.6% for the first time since March 25. US/
After Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS.N , JPMorgan Chase & Co
JPM.N and Wells Fargo & Co WFC.N kicked off reporting season
on Wednesday with bumper results, Bank of America BAC.N and
Citigroup Inc C.N also offered optimistic views on an economic
recovery in their earnings reports on Thursday. However, their
shares declined 2.9% and 0.5%. "Uncharacteristically, expectations for earnings have
improved for the quarter and what tends to move markets is when
the numbers are far better than expected," said Randy Frederick,
vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 305.1 points,
or 0.9%, to 34,035.99; the S&P 500 .SPX gained 45.76 points,
or 1.11%, at 4,170.42; and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
180.92 points, or 1.31%, at 14,038.76.
Further bolstering sentiment was a jump in March U.S. retail
sales as Americans received additional pandemic relief checks
from the government. Jobless claims also fell more than expected
to 576,000 last week to a one-year low. "For U.S. equities, it's the best of both worlds, as we have
the 10-year down but we have good economic data. That's exactly
what you'd want to see," said T Rowe's Murray.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc COIN.O bounced
around before closing 1.7% lower, a day after its high-profile
debut on the Nasdaq that briefly valued it at more than $100
billion. Mobile app and gaming firm AppLovin Corp APP.O slumped
18.5% on its first day of trading, having been valued by its
initial public offering at $28.6 billion. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.95 billion shares, compared
with the 11.17 billion average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.93-to-1 ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 90 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 97 new highs and 53 new lows.

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