US STOCKS-Wall St rises for third straight day on data, earnings

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* U.S. adds China's Huawei to trade blacklist
* Walmart, Cisco gain after earnings beats
* Housing starts, jobless claims beat expectations
* Treasury yields rise, lifting financials
* Indexes up: Dow 0.84%, S&P 0.89%, Nasdaq 0.97%

(Updates to market close)
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Wall Street closed higher on
Thursday as upbeat earnings and strong economic data put
investors in a buying mood, with technology companies leading
the charge.
All three major U.S. stock indexes pared gains late in the
session, adding less than 1% and bringing the bellwether S&P 500
close to 2% below an all-time high reached on April 30.
While the escalating U.S.-China tariff war continued to be a
concern for market participants, upbeat quarterly results and
data pointing to a strong U.S. economy helped ease trade-related
jitters.
Walmart WMT.N rose 1.4% after its first-quarter results
beat analyst expectations.
Cisco Systems CSCO.O stock saw its biggest percentage jump
since February 2016, gaining 6.7% after better-than-expected
quarterly results. On the economic front, groundbreaking on new U.S. homes
increased more than expected in April, according to the Commerce
Department, as declining interest rates provided support to the
struggling housing sector. The S&P 1500 Homebuilding index .SPCOMHOME advanced 1.2%.
In a separate report from the Labor Department, 16,000 fewer
Americans applied for unemployment last week, beating economist
estimates.
"If you look at the overall economy, we're in a
fundamentally strong position and this is a reinforcement of
that," said Matthew Keator, managing partner in the Keator
Group, a wealth management firm in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Regarding U.S.-China trade negotiations, Keator believes the
worst may be over.
"Things had to get worse before they could get better,"
Keator added. "With tariffs now in place, the Administration has
something to give up."
Washington placed Huawei Technologies Co on a blacklist
which bans it from acquiring components and technology from U.S.
firms without prior approval. Shares of Huawei suppliers Qorvo Inc QRVO.O , Skyworks
Solutions Inc SWKS.O , Qualcomm Inc QCOM.O , Xilinx Inc
XLNX.O and Micron Technology Inc MU.O lost ground.
The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX ended the
session down 1.7%.
Electric automaker Tesla Inc TSLA.O dropped 1.6% following
safety agency reports that the Autopilot feature was engaged
during a fatal crash in Florida in March. Ride-hailing rivals Uber Technologies UBER.N and Lyft Inc
LYFT.O posted their third straight day of gains after spending
much of their post-debut trading days in negative territory.
Their shares were up 4.1% and 2.9%, respectively.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 214.66 points,
or 0.84%, to 25,862.68, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 25.36 points,
or 0.89%, to 2,876.32 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
75.90 points, or 0.97%, to 7,898.05.
All 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 were trading in positive
territory, with materials .SPLRCM , financials .SPSY and
consumer discretionary .SPLRCD seeing the largest percentage
gains.
A mostly upbeat first-quarter earnings season is beginning
to wind down, with 457 S&P 500 companies having reported. Of
those, about 75% have beaten profit expectations, according to
Refinitiv data.
Analysts now expect first-quarter earnings growth of 1.4%, a
significant improvement over the 2% loss expected on April 1.
Nvidia Corp NVDA.O was up over 4% in after-market trading
after the Huawei Technologies supplier posted quarterly
earnings.
Pinterest Inc PINS.K dropped more than 12% in extended
trading after posting results.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
2.19-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.44-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 51 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 92 new highs and 69 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.56 billion shares, compared
to the 6.98 billion average over the last 20 trading days.