Wall Street rebounds led by tech, healthcare stocks

By Noel Randewich

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks were on track for their strongest daily gain in two weeks on Wednesday, led by technology and healthcare stocks and hopes that Greece would avoid defaulting on its debt.

Reports that Athens and its creditors were near a deal pushed the euro higher against the dollar, partly reversing recent moves. EU officials, however, dismissed Greek claims an aid agreement was being drafted.

Concerns about Greece and the strong dollar, which cuts into the sales of U.S. multinationals, had pushed Wall Street to its steepest fall in three weeks on Tuesday.

"What we are seeing today is a traditional bounce-back," said Michael Wall, president and founder of Retire Well and Wall Financial Group. "I expect the sideways trend to continue, though the market will continue to grind for gains in the coming few months."

 

At 2:10 p.m., the Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 129.19 points, or 0.72 percent, to 18,170.73, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 18.11 points, or 0.86 percent, to 2,122.31 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 65.40 points, or 1.3 percent, to 5,098.15.

The last time all three indexes closed with larger gains was on May 14.

The S&P has inched up to a handful of record high closes in recent weeks. But the stock market has failed to make what traders see as meaningful gains, in part because they are concerned about when the Federal Reserve will start to raise interest rates.

Nine of the 10 major S&P 500 sectors were higher, with the technology <.SPLRCT> and health <.SPXHC> indexes both rising 1 percent or more.

The energy sector <.SPNY> was off a marginal 0.03 percent as the rising dollar weighed on oil prices. Low oil prices helped the Dow Jones airlines index <.DJUSAR> break a 5-day losing streak to rise 1.9 percent.

Apple and Microsoft , both up about 2 percent, gave the biggest boost to the Nasdaq.

Broadcom surged 15 percent after the Wall Street Journal reported the chipmaker was in talks to be bought by Avago Technologies .

Michael Kors dropped as much as 24 percent to a near three-year low of $46.10 after the handbag maker reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth since going public.

Coach fell 3.58 percent, Kate Spade was off 4.46 percent and Fossil dropped 5.84 percent on Michael Kors' report of lower tourist traffic, weak watch demand and shipping delays due to West Coast port disruptions.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,145 to 839, for a 2.56-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,933 issues rose and 782 fell for a 2.47-to-1 ratio favouring advancers.

The S&P 500 was posting 20 new 52-week highs and 4 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 63 new highs and 44 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Tany Agraway, editing by Savio D'Souza and Nick Zieminski)