US STOCKS-Tech stocks boost Wall St as reports bolster hopes of trade deal

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or
type LIVE/ in a news window)
* Beijing open to agreeing to partial trade deal - BBG
* China offering extra U.S. agriculture purchases - FT
* Apple, Microsoft biggest boost to S&P 500
* J&J drops after jury says company must pay $8 bln in
damages
* Indexes up: Dow 0.61%, S&P 500 0.73%, Nasdaq 0.83%

(Updates to open)
By Arjun Panchadar
Oct 9 (Reuters) - A rally in technology stocks boosted Wall
Street on Wednesday, as investors cheered media reports
signaling an ease in trade tensions between the United States
and China ahead of high-level talks starting Thursday.
Shares of Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Apple Inc AAPL.O
rose 1% and were the biggest boost to the S&P 500 .SPX . The
technology sector .SPLRCT rose 1.24%.
Chipmakers with a sizable exposure to China also gained,
with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX up 1.68%.
China was still open to agreeing to a partial trade deal
with the United States, despite the inclusion of top Chinese
artificial intelligence startups in a trade blacklist, according
to a Bloomberg report. Separately, the Financial Times said Beijing was offering to
increase its annual purchases of U.S. agricultural products.
"There are expectations that some sort of an interim deal
will emerge from these meetings," said Peter Cardillo, chief
market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
"Investors certainly seem more hopeful now than they did two
days ago."
Escalating trade tensions, intensifying efforts to impeach
President Donald Trump and signs of slowing economic growth
rocked equity markets in October, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones
indexes off more than 2% since the end of September.
A sharp contraction in U.S. manufacturing data, as well as a
dismal reading on business activity last week has raised bets of
a third interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve this year.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell flagged openness to further rate
cuts on Tuesday, repeating that the central bank would act "as
appropriate" amid an economy that he said was likely to continue
to expand. The session's gains were broad-based, with all the major S&P
500 sectors trading higher and 29 of the 30 components of the
blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average index .DJI in positive
territory, with only Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N declining.
The drugmaker's shares fell 1.4% after a jury awarded $8
billion in punitive damages to a man who accused it of failing
to warn that young men using its antipsychotic drug Risperdal
could grow breasts. Energy stocks .SPNY also gained 1.2%, tracking an increase
in oil prices.
Investors will now turn their eye to the third-quarter
earnings season, which begins next week with U.S. banks
reporting to gauge the health of the domestic economy.
Analysts expect the worst quarterly profit performance since
2016, with earnings for S&P 500 companies estimated to fall 3.1%
from a year earlier, based on IBES data from Refinitiv.
At 10:22 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 159.15 points, or 0.61%, at 26,323.19, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 21.15 points, or 0.73%, at 2,914.21 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 65.10 points, or 0.83%, at 7,888.88.
Shares in Netflix Inc NFLX.O fell 1.4%, the most on the
S&P 500, after two brokerages cut price targets on the video
streaming service provider's shares.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 2.95-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 2.20-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded seven new 52-week highs and five new
lows, while the Nasdaq recorded four new highs and 54 new lows.