(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* 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 0.87%, S&P 500 1.08%, Nasdaq 1.29%
(Adds comments, graphic, updates to mid-afternoon)
By Shivani Kumaresan, Shreyashi Sanyal and David French
April 15 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 .SPX and the Dow
industrials .DJI extended all-time highs on Thursday as
falling bond yields and strong March U.S. retail sales data
sparked buying of richly valued technology stocks.
The S&P information technology .SPLRCT and communication
services .SPLRCL indexes rose 1.7% and 1.3% respectively, led
by components Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and
Facebook Inc FB.O . The trio, which had underperformed last
month, climbed between 1.3% and 1.9%.
The Federal Reserve's assurances that it would maintain an
accommodative monetary policy despite higher inflation, as well
as more fiscal stimulus, have revived U.S. stock markets and put
the Nasdaq Composite Index about 1.2% below its all-time high.
The S&P 500 has hit record highs in five of the last six
sessions, and the Dow surpassed its peak for the third session
in five.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield US10YT=RR slipped
below 1.6% for the first time since March 25. US/
Top U.S. banks kicked off the first-quarter reporting season
on Wednesday, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS.N , JPMorgan
Chase & Co JPM.N and Wells Fargo & Co WFC.N posting 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, but shares of the second-biggest U.S.
lender fell 3.5% after its profit squeaked by Wall Street
estimates. Citi's shares fell 1%. "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.
"While individual names may sell off, the overall sector is
fine."
By 2:27 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
rose 288.19 points, or 0.85%, to 34,019.08; the S&P 500 .SPX
gained 43.69 points, or 1.06%, at 4,168.35; and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC added 176.34 points, or 1.27%, at 14,034.18.
BlackRock Inc BLK.N , the world's largest asset manager,
gained 1.9% after reporting a 16% jump in first-quarter profit,
while PepsiCo Inc PEP.O dipped 0.1% despite it forecasting a
pickup in organic revenue growth in the second quarter.
Further bolstering sentiment, data showed retail sales
jumped sharply in March as Americans received additional
pandemic relief checks from the government, while jobless claims
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 Tim Murray, a T. Rowe Price
Associates capital markets strategist.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc COIN.O slipped
0.5%, a day after going public in a high-profile debut on the
Nasdaq that briefly valued it at more than $100 billion.
AppLovin Corp APP.O fell 17.6% on its first day of trading
after its initial public offering valued the mobile app and
gaming company at $28.6 billion. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.72-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.03-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 81 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 87 new highs and 46 new lows.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
6-month chart of S&P tech sector and 10-yr U.S. Treasury https://tmsnrt.rs/3slrQrC
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>