Wall Street propped up by tech, discretionary stocks

By Yashaswini Swamynathan

REUTERS - Wall Street rose for the first time in three days on Tuesday, helped by technology and discretionary stocks, but weak oil prices limited gains.

The S&P 500 technology sector rose 0.7 percent and gave the biggest boost to the benchmark index, helped by a 1 percent rise in Google parent Alphabet's stock.

Amazon.com rose 1.3 percent, lifting the consumer discretionary index. JPMorgan raised its price targets on the two stocks.

The consumer sector also got a boost from a report that showed the consumer confidence index unexpectedly rose to 104.1, marking its highest level since August 2007.

"The number came in much better than expected, so consumer stocks seem to be catching a bit after having a hard time for probably a month or two," said Mark Spellman, portfolio manager at Alpine Funds in New York.

The discretionary index had lost 2.5 percent in the past two months.

However, oil prices fell 3.5 percent to $46.05 as hopes for a deal to cut output faded. The S&P 500 energy index dropped 1.5 percent.

At 10:59 a.m. ET (1459 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 18.9 points, or 0.1 percent, at 18,113.73.

The S&P 500 was up 0.99 points, or 0.05 percent, at 2,147.09. Seven of its 11 major indexes were trading higher.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 15.92 points, or 0.3 percent, at 5,273.41.

Gilead fell 2.1 percent after Leerink downgraded the drugmaker's stock to "market perform".

Netflix rose 2.7 percent after JPMorgan raised its price target to $125.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,529 to 1,299. On the Nasdaq, 1,421 issues rose and 1,135 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed nine new 52-week highs and one new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 43 new highs and 21 new lows.

(Reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)