US STOCKS-Wall St higher as oil surges after tanker attacks in Gulf of Oman

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* Oil surges 4%; Energy top gainer among S&P sectors
* Disney up as MS sees higher Disney Plus subscriber growth
* Twitter drops as Moffett Nathanson sees rising costs
* Indexes up: Dow 0.09%, S&P 0.16%, Nasdaq 0.35%

(Updates prices, comments)
By Shreyashi Sanyal
June 13 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks continued their climb on
Thursday after two days of declines as energy shares gained on
higher oil prices following suspected attacks on two tankers in
the Gulf of Oman.
Crude prices rose as much as 4%, a day after hitting
five-month lows, as the attacks near Iran and the Strait of
Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil consumption passes,
stoked fears of a faceoff between Iran and the United States.
The S&P energy index .SPNY jumped 1.4%, the most among the
11 major S&P sectors. Shares of oil majors Exxon Mobil Corp
XOM.N and Chevron Corp CVX.N rose 1.2% each.
"Chevron and Exxon Mobil were two of the session's better
performers, as the markets continue to digest news of oil tanker
blasts in the Gulf of Oman," said Connor Campbell, financial
analyst at Spreadex in London.
The biggest boost to the S&P 500 index .SPX was the
communication services sector .SPLRCL , which rose 0.74%.
Walt Disney Co DIS.N shares added 2.14%, the biggest
contributor to the sector, after Morgan Stanley raised its
forecast for Disney Plus subscriber growth.
Wall Street's main indexes have had a strong start to the
month on hopes the Federal Reserve will act to counter a slowing
global economy due to the escalating trade war with China. The
benchmark S&P 500 index .SPX has risen 5% so far in June.
U.S. consumer prices data on Wednesday pointed to a moderate
rise in inflation, adding to expectations of an interest rate
cut as early as July. The Fed policymakers are set to meet on
June 18-19 and markets have priced in at least three rate cuts
in 2019.
But on the trade front, there were doubts about any
improvement in what President Donald Trump called "testy" trade
relations with China in the run up to the G20 summit later in
this month.
Investors were also cautious on their exposure to stocks as
they braced for the upcoming Fed meeting and the G20 summit.
"The sentiment around trade talks is generally more dire. I
think you're going to see the Fed being very tempered on rate
cuts and we're going to see these muted gains as we gauge how
severe the economic downturn is," said Matt Lloyd, chief
investment officer at Advisors Asset Management in Monument,
Colorado.
At 11:17 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
up 23.22 points, or 0.09%, at 26,028.05, the S&P 500 .SPX was
up 4.64 points, or 0.16%, at 2,884.48 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC was up 27.20 points, or 0.35%, at 7,819.92.
Also boosting the indexes were gains in marquee companies
Facebook Inc FB.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O , Amazon.com Inc
AMZN.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O ,
which rose between 0.2% and 1.1%.
Twitter Inc shares TWTR.N fell 3.79%, the most among S&P
500 companies, after brokerage Moffett Nathanson said it expects
the social media company's costs to rise and revenue growth to
slow.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.08-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and by a 1.99-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 25 new 52-week highs and one new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 40 new highs and 49 new lows.