US STOCKS-S&P 500, Nasdaq scale highs as Netflix jumps, Biden inaugurated

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* FAANGs jump after Netflix results beat estimates
* Dow up 0.68%, S&P 500 up 1.36%, Nasdaq up 1.97%

(Adds comments; updates prices; adds New York dateline; changes
byline)
By Echo Wang
Jan 20 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq hit highs on
Wednesday as Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th U.S. president,
while solid results from Netflix sparked a rally in shares of
stay-at-home winners.
Shares of the world's largest streaming service Netflix
NFLX.O surged 18.08% and added nearly $40 billion to its
market capitalization after it said it would no longer need to
borrow billions of dollars to finance its TV shows and movies.
The rest of the FAANG group, due to report results in the
coming weeks, jumped with Google parent Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O
rising 5.59%. The NYSE FANG+TM index .NYFANG gained 5.06%.
"What's interesting about Netflix is that they didn't crash,
when the economy crumbled. There was this thought that perhaps
COVID would actually be bad for them because people would not
want to spend money, but it was the total opposite. Everybody
signed up for these streaming services," said Sylvia Jablonski,
chief investment officer at Defiance ETFs in New York.
Biden will waste little time turning the page on the Trump
era, aides said, signing a raft of 15 executive actions in the
afternoon on issues ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to the
economy to climate change. "The market reacted to the election a while back and it did
so in a way that was positive to the nomination of President
Biden," Jablonski said.
"Americans are ready for the next chapter and taking some of
that readiness and investing back into the market."
The Dow has gained about 57% and the S&P 500 advanced about
68% since Donald Trump assumed office on Jan. 20, 2017, which
compares with a 65% jump in the Dow and 75% gain in the S&P
during the first term of the Obama administration.
Wall Street's main indexes scaled record highs in the past
few months, with the blue-chip Dow jumping about 13% since the
presidential elections in November, as investors bet on a strong
economic recovery in 2021 on the back of COVID-19 vaccine
rollout and a bigger pandemic relief plan.
Nearly all of the 11 major S&P sectors advanced in afternoon
trading, with communication services .SPLRCL , real estate
.SPLRCR and technology .SPLRCT among the biggest gainers.
Wrapping up results from major U.S. lenders, Morgan Stanley
MS.N slipped 0.61% despite posting quarterly profit that blew
past estimates driven by strength in its trading
business. The broader banks index .SPXBK shed about 1.60%, declining
for the third day.
With stock market valuations sitting near a 20-year high,
investors are hoping corporate results and profit outlooks will
help them determine to what degree the valuations are justified.

By 2:26 p.m. ET (1926 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average
.DJI rose 211.64 points, or 0.68%, to 31,142.16, the S&P 500
.SPX gained 51.63 points, or 1.36%, to 3,850.54 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC added 259.48 points, or 1.97%, to 13,456.66.
Procter & Gamble Co PG.N raised its full-year sales
forecast for a second time as it benefited from sustained
coronavirus-driven demand for cleaning products. Its shares,
however, fell 1.31% after it warned that the pace of sales might
slow as vaccines roll out.
UnitedHealth Group Inc UNH.N dipped 0.69% after the health
insurer's quarterly profit slumped nearly 38%, weighed down by
costs related to its programs to make COVID-19 testing and
treatment more accessible for its customers. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.79-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.10-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 53 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 321 new highs and four new lows.