US STOCKS-Wall St rebounds as earnings roll in, short worries ease

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* Weekly jobless claims dip, but still remain high
* Q4 GDP grows at consensus-matching 4% rate
* GameStop, AMC fall as platforms restrict trading
* Dow up 1.63%, S&P 500 up 1.80%, Nasdaq up 1.47%

(Adds comments, updates prices throughout)
By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rebounded on
Thursday from sharp losses in the prior session in a broad rally
as earnings season got off to a strong start and fears eased
around hedge funds selling long positions to cover shorts.
Heavyweights, including Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Amazon.com
AMZN.O and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O , were among the biggest
boosts to the S&P 500, a day after the three major U.S. indexes
suffered their biggest daily percentage drop in three months.
Apple AAPL.O reported holiday-quarter sales and profit
that beat Wall Street expectations. However, shares of the
iPhone maker fell 1.86% after climbing about 7% to start the
year. With quarterly earnings season in full swing, market
participants have looked to whether companies could justify high
valuations, with the forward price-to-earnings ratio on the
benchmark S&P index near 20-year highs at almost 22.7.
"You come into today and so many companies have beat
estimates and yeah, maybe some of them are a little weak,
because they were strong going in," said Andrew Slimmon, senior
portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management in
Chicago.
"What has been consistent since the pandemic is Wall Street
has been too bearish on earnings estimates and I thought at some
point this is going to run out of steam, and it ain't running
out so far."
Shares in GameStop Corp GME.N and AMC Entertainment
Holdings Inc AMC.N tumbled after a meteoric rise in recent
sessions in a social media-driven trading frenzy that shook
stock markets. Trading platforms, including Robinhood and
Interactive Brokers, restricted trading in several stocks that
soared this week, easing concerns about a ripple effect to the
broader market. "Trading platforms are not going to want to stick their
necks out and be on the frontline of what they may see as a
reckless war, in part, against the elite and the system of Wall
Street that's being democratized by information and the social
media," said Eric Schiffer, chief executive officer of private
equity firm the Patriarch Organization.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 489.17 points,
or 1.61%, to 30,792.34, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 66.88 points,
or 1.78%, to 3,817.65 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
193.25 points, or 1.46%, to 13,463.85.
Of the 159 companies in the S&P 500 that reported earnings
through Thursday morning, 83% posted results that topped analyst
expectations, according to Refinitiv data, well above the 76%
beat rate over the past four quarters.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) fell 1.66% in choppy trading despite soundly
beating quarterly revenue estimates, while Tesla shed 2.26%
after posting disappointing fourth-quarter results and failing
to provide a clear target for 2021 vehicle deliveries.

But Comcast Corp CMCSA.O jumped 7.71% after it reported
better-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue, as broadband demand
continued to offset pandemic-related weakness in its theme park
and filmed entertainment businesses. A Commerce Department report showed fourth-quarter gross
domestic product increased at a 4% annualized rate, in line with
expectations, as the virus and lack of another spending package
curtailed consumer spending, while a separate report showed
847,000 more people filed jobless claims last week, lower than
the 875,000 estimate. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
2.34-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.44-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 11 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 81 new highs and 12 new lows.