(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 0.82%, S&P 0.95%, Nasdaq 1.04%
(Adds comments, updates to early afternoon)
By Shivani Kumaresan and Shreyashi Sanyal
April 15 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Dow hit record
highs on Thursday as easing inflation concerns boosted demand
for richly valued technology stocks, while upbeat earnings
reports and strong March retail sales raised hopes of a broader
economic rebound.
The S&P information technology .SPLRCT and communication
services .SPLRCL indexes, which include Apple Inc AAPL.O ,
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Facebook Inc FB.O , led gains
after underperforming last month.
Assurances from the Federal Reserve to maintain an
accommodative monetary policy despite higher inflation, as well
as more fiscal stimulus, have since revived U.S. stock markets
and put the Nasdaq about 1.2% below its all-time high.
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 and Citigroup also offered optimistic views
on an economic recovery in their earnings reports on Thursday,
but shares of the second-biggest U.S. lender BAC.N fell 2.9%
after it posted a profit that just about topped estimates.
Citi's shares were 0.2% lower. "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."
At 12:30 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 275.71 points, or 0.82%, at 34,006.60, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 39.23 points, or 0.95%, at 4,163.89, and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 144.25 points, or 1.04%, at 14,002.09.
BlackRock Inc BLK.N , the world's largest asset manager,
gained 2.5% after reporting a 16% jump in first-quarter profit,
while PepsiCo Inc PEP.O edged 0.2% higher after it forecast 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.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase COIN.O added 2%, a day
after going public in a high-profile debut on the Nasdaq that
briefly valued it at more than $100 billion.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.60-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE, while declining issues outnumbered advancers for a
1.14-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 73 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 78 new highs and 36 new lows.