Wall Street rising: Facebook, Alphabet gain

By Noel Randewich

(Reuters) - Wall Street rose on Thursday, buoyed by popular technology companies including Facebook and Alphabet, while shares of yoga pants seller Lululemon Athletica also warmed up.

Facebook Google parent-company Alphabet added over 1.5 percent, helping push the S&P 500 higher after the index lost ground for four straight sessions.

General Electric increased about 0.8 percent after the industrial conglomerate said it was cutting 12,000 jobs at its global power business.

Lululemon jumped 7.16 percent after the Canadian apparel maker reported a higher-than-expected profit and gave an upbeat holiday season forecast.

"Technology once again is leading the way here," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in New York.

The top-performing sector this year, the S&P 500 information technology index leading the gainers.

The S&P 500 consumer staples index <.SPLRCS> fell 0.78 percent, hurt by drops of at least 1.2 percent in Procter & Gamble , Pepsico and Coca-Cola .

LendingClub plunged 15 percent after the online lender lowered its quarterly revenue forecast.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting a rapid tightening of the labour market.

The report comes ahead of more comprehensive government payrolls data on Friday that would be used by investors to gauge the strength of the labour market at a time when the Federal Reserve is almost certain to raise U.S. interest rates next week.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.59-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.62-to-1 ratio favoured advancers.

(Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; Editing by James Dalgleish)