US STOCKS-Momentum stocks put S&P 500, Nasdaq on course for new highs

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* Global stocks jump to record high
* Salesforce surges, giving S&P its biggest boost
* Hurricane Laura gathers strength, oil assets shuttered
* Dow up 0.08%, S&P rises 0.84%, Nasdaq jumps 1.60%

(Updates to late afternoon, changes dateline, byline)
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Wall Street advanced on
Wednesday as upbeat earnings kept investors focused on momentum
stocks that have outperformed since the onset of the coronavirus
pandemic.
The gains set the S&P and the Nasdaq on track for their
latest in a string of all-time closing highs, while the Dow,
which has yet to reclaim its pre-COVID record, was only modestly
higher.
The MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS surged past its
February high to reach a record peak. Salesforce.com CRM.N , the cloud computing company and
soon-to-be Dow component, gave the S&P its biggest boost, its
shares soaring 24.8% following its beat-and-raise earnings
report.
Cyclical stocks, which tend to perform well in times of
economic recovery, were mostly lower.
"Markets are singing the same tune," said Peter Cardillo,
chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New
York. "The market continues to move higher on momentum buying,
and of course it's the same Nasdaq group all the time."
"There's no indication of any real shift in leadership,"
Cardillo added.
Energy .SPNY was the biggest percentage loser among S&P
500 sectors, dropping 1.6% as Hurricane Laura bore down on the
Texas-Louisiana coastline, posing the largest threat to U.S.
energy assets since 2005's Hurricane Katrina. The coming storm,
now expected to strengthen to category 4, prompted crude
producers and refiners to shut down their facilities.
Commercial air carrier stocks lost altitude, with the S&P
1500 Airline index .SPCOMAIR dipping 1.5% even after the White
House announced President Trump was weighing an executive action
to avoid massive layoffs in the sector. The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to unveil a new
framework intended to soften the central bank's inflation
stance, which Chairman Jerome Powell is expected to address
during his remarks on Thursday as part of the Kansas City Fed's
virtual Jackson Hole symposium. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 23.67 points,
or 0.08%, to 28,272.11, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 29.02 points,
or 0.84%, to 3,472.64 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
183.82 points, or 1.6%, to 11,650.29.
Communications services .SPLRCL led the 11 major sectors
in the S&P in percentage gains.
Second-quarter earnings season has wound down, with 483 of
the companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 82.2%
have beaten consensus, according to Refinitiv data.
In aggregate, analysts now see earnings for the April to
June quarter having dropped by 29.9% year-on-year, according to
Refinitiv.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co HPE.N rose 4.1% after its
full-year profit outlook beat expectations, while tax software
firm Intuit Inc INTU.O advanced 2.5% on a 17% rise in
quarterly revenue.
Apparel retailer Nordstrom Inc JWN.N tumbled 5.1%
following its bigger-than-expected quarterly losses after being
forced by mandated lockdowns to shutter its stores. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.37-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.38-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 34 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 83 new highs and 7 new lows.