US STOCKS-Financials lift S&P 500, Dow; Powell, Yellen on deck

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* Intel gains on $20 bln chip expansion announcement
* GameStop slumps on plans to sell shares
* Indexes: Dow up 0.94%, S&P up 0.48%, Nasdaq off 0.21%

(Adds comment, details; updates prices)
By Devik Jain and Medha Singh
March 24 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Dow rose on
Wednesday as economy-linked financial and energy stocks gained
amid another day of testimonies from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Intel Corp INTC.O gained 1.5% as the company, in its
efforts to expand chip making capacity, announced plans to spend
as much as $20 billion to build two factories in Arizona and
open its factories to outside customers. U.S.-listed shares of rival Taiwan Semiconductor TSM.N
dropped 4%, while semiconductor equipment makers Lam Research
Corp LRCX.O , Applied Materials Inc AMAT.O and ASML Holding
ASML.O gained between 2.7% and 6.5%.
"Wall Street is looking for a new catalyst right now and is
wondering if we are simply going through a see-saw pattern,
which you might call a correction in time rather than a
correction in price," said Sam Stovall, chief investment
strategist at CFRA Research in New York.
"The most recent stimulus package has already been passed
and people are wondering just how much of a new $3 trillion
infrastructure package will be approved."
Wall Street's main indexes have flipped between gains and
losses this week as easing bond yields prompted a return to
beaten-down technology stocks from economy-linked energy and
financial stocks.
Powell and Yellen resumed their Congressional hearings on
Wednesday, a day after concerns about the cost of infrastructure
spending and potential tax hikes weighed on stocks.
At 10:12 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 303.91 points, or 0.94%, at 32,727.06, and the S&P 500
.SPX was up 18.78 points, or 0.48%, at 3,929.30. The Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 27.73 points, or 0.21%, at 13,199.97.
Facebook Inc FB.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp
MSFT.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O slipped about 0.6% as
premarket gains fizzled out.
Bitcoin BTC=BTSP gained 5% as Tesla Inc's TSLA.O chief,
Elon Musk, said the company's electric vehicles can now be
bought using bitcoin and the option will be available outside
the United States later this year. GameStop Corp GME.N tumbled 13% after the video game
retailer said it may sell new shares as the company that led the
Reddit rally of "meme stocks" looks to take advantage of a more
than 800% surge in its stock price since January. Energy stocks .SPNY jumped about 3% as crude prices
rebounded from a 6% fall in the last session. O/R
Latest data showed U.S. factory activity picked up in early
March, but supply chain disruptions because of the COVID-19
pandemic continued to exert cost pressures for manufacturers.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 2.24-to-1 on the NYSE
and 1.08-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded six new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 22 new highs and 46 new lows.