US STOCKS-Wall St climbs as hopes of economic revival overshadow jump in virus cases

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* Biogen submits marketing application for Alzheimer's drug
* Levi Strauss falls after cautious second-half outlook
* Allstate slips on $4 bln deal to buy National General
* Indexes up: Dow 0.15%, S&P 0.30%, Nasdaq 0.93%

(Updates to early afternoon)
By C Nivedita and Medha Singh
July 8 (Reuters) - Wall Street's major indexes edged higher
in choppy trading on Wednesday, supported by technology shares
as early signs of an economic rebound overrode fears of another
lockdown due to a jump in coronavirus cases across the country.
Apple Inc AAPL.O and Microsoft Corp MSFT.O provided the
biggest boost to all three indexes. The technology index
.SPLRCT rose 1.1%, the most among the 11 major S&P sectors.
"People are debating whether or not the low in the economy
has actually been reached so they're sticking with growth stocks
and that's technology," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio
manager at SlateStone Wealth LLC in New York.
Safe-haven gold rose nearly 1% as the number of confirmed
U.S. cases surpassed 3 million, affecting nearly one of every
100 Americans. California, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri, Montana,
Oklahoma and Texas broke their previous daily record highs for
new infections. GOL/
The S&P 500 has been in a tight trading range since early
June after it rose more than 45% from its March lows as
investors weighed a string of upbeat economic data including
record job additions and a rebound in the service sector in
June, against a domestic surge in coronavirus cases.
Markets also appeared to be in a wait-and-watch mode before
the beginning of the second-quarter earnings season, which kicks
off next week with reports from the big Wall Street banks.
Quarterly earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to
decline about 44% year-on-year, the steepest drop since the 2008
financial crisis, according to IBES Refinitiv data.
"Wall Street is looking ahead to 2021 earnings and pretty
much ignoring 2020," said Sam Stovall, chief investment
strategist at CFRA Research in New York.
At 12:34 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 38.21 points, or 0.15%, at 25,928.39, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 9.53 points, or 0.30%, at 3,154.85. The Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC was up 96.05 points, or 0.93%, at 10,439.94.
Biogen Inc BIIB.O jumped 5.2% after the company said it
submitted the marketing application for its experimental
Alzheimer's disease therapy, aducanumab. Allstate Corp ALL.N slipped 3.7% as the U.S. insurer said
it would buy National General Holdings Corp NGHC.O for about
$4 billion, scaling up its auto insurance business. National
General shares surged 64.6%. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.12-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and for a 1.02-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 16 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 84 new highs and 16 new lows.