US STOCKS-Wall St gains on bright earnings, megacaps' support

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GM up on FY forecast raise, Q1 beat

Nucor sinks after Q1 results miss

Indexes up: Dow 0.40%, S&P 0.69%, Nasdaq 0.88%

(Updated at 9:49 a.m. ET/1349 GMT)

By Shristi Achar A and Shashwat Chauhan

April 23 (Reuters) -

Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Tuesday as some growth and chip shares gained, while stocks like General Motors and Spotify advanced on upbeat earnings updates ahead of quarterly reports from big technology companies.

Some megacap growth stocks including Meta Platforms (META.O) , Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Alphabet (GOOGL.O) gained between 1.1% and 2.3% in early trading.

The tech majors are scheduled to report their quarterly numbers this week, with Tesla (TSLA.O) kicking off the cycle after markets close on Tuesday.

Early gains in some chip stocks also offered support to equities, with Nvidia (NVDA.O) , Micron Technology (MU.O) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) up between 1.2% and 1.9%.

On the earnings front, General Motors (GM.N) advanced 4.8% after the automaker posted quarterly results above Wall Street targets and raised its annual forecast.

Spotify (SPOT.N) gained 12.4% after the Swedish music streaming company’s quarterly gross profit topped 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) for the first time.

GE Aerospace

(GE.N) rose 4.8% after the aerospace giant raised its full-year profit forecast.

Danaher

(DHR.N) jumped 6.6% after the life sciences firm beat quarterly profit and sales expectations.

“Overall, people are happy with how (earnings) have gone because mostly they’re surprised that things aren’t worse,” said Will McDonough, chairman and CEO of Corestone Capital.

On the flipside, JetBlue (JBLU.O) plunged 11.8% as the low-cost airline trimmed its annual revenue forecast after reporting lukewarm first-quarter revenue.

First-quarter earnings are expected to grow 6% on a year-on-year basis, as per latest estimates from LSEG.

U.S. equities sold off sharply last week amid heightened tensions in the Middle East and as traders re-evaluated their rate-cut expectations from the Federal Reserve.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index reading for March, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, is due on Friday and will help ascertain the central bank’s monetary policy trajectory.

Money markets are now pricing in just about 42 basis points of interest-rate cuts, down from about 150 bps seen at the start of the year, according to LSEG data.

On the data front, a preliminary reading of the April S&P Global Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors, came in at 50.9.

At 9:49 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was up 152.31 points, or 0.40%, at 38,392.29, the S&P 500 (.SPX) was up 34.72 points, or 0.69%, at 5,045.32, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) was up 135.98 points, or 0.88%, at 15,587.28.

Nine of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were trading higher, with communication services (.SPLRCL) amongst top gainers, up 1.4%.

Among other stocks, Nucor Corp (NUE.N) shed 6.0% as the steelmaker missed Wall Street estimates for first-quarter earnings.

Roblox (RBLX.O) added 4.1% after J.P. Morgan upgraded the gaming platform to “overweight” from “neutral” on significant monetization opportunity.

Hibbett (HIBB.O) jumped 18.4% as JD Sports Fashion (JD.L) proposed to buy the athletic fashion retailer for about $1.08 billion.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.25-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 2.90-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded five new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 10 new highs and 42 new lows.