US STOCKS-Energy shares power Wall Street higher

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* Oil surges 4%; Energy top gainer among S&P sectors
* Tyson Foods rises after launching vegan products
* Disney up as MS sees higher Disney Plus subscriber growth
* Indexes up: Dow 0.42%, S&P 0.45%, Nasdaq 0.66%

(Updates to open)
By Shreyashi Sanyal
June 13 (Reuters) - Gains in energy shares helped Wall
Street's main indexes snap two days of weakness and trade higher
on Thursday, with hopes of an interest rate cut adding to the
upbeat sentiment.
Crude prices rose as much as 4%, a day after hitting
five-month lows, after a suspected attack on two tankers in the
Gulf of Oman near Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, through which a
fifth of global oil consumption passes. The S&P energy index .SPNY jumped 1.21%, the most among
the 11 major sectors. Shares of oil majors Exxon Mobil Corp
XOM.N and Chevron Corp CVX.N rose 1% each.
"There is a positive correlation between stock markets and
oil prices which is the day's catalyst," Scott Brown, chief
economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Wall Street's main indexes have had a strong start to the
month on hopes that 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.
"There is still uncertainty about trade policy and about
what the Fed is going to do. That is still keeping a lot of
people back on their heels at this point," Brown said.
Walt Disney Co DIS.N shares rose 2.56%, pushing the
communication services sector .SPLRCL 0.80% higher, after
Morgan Stanley raised its forecast for Disney Plus subscriber
growth.
At 9:53 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
up 109.90 points, or 0.42%, at 26,114.73, the S&P 500 .SPX was
up 13.06 points, or 0.45%, at 2,892.90 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC was up 51.41 points, or 0.66%, at 7,844.13.
Offering the biggest boost to 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 0.5% and 1.1%.
Tyson Foods TSN.N rose 1.51% after the meat processor
launched its first vegan and mixed protein products. Shares of
vegan burger maker Beyond Meat BYND.O dropped 1.65%.

Twitter Inc shares TWTR.N fell 3.26%, 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 3.87-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 2.48-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 23 new 52-week highs and one new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 32 new highs and 24 new lows.