US STOCKS-Nasdaq, S&P 500 crawl higher on Amazon, Apple boost

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* Indexes: Dow off 0.04%, S&P 500, Nasdaq both up 0.26%
* FAANG group of stocks lead indexes higher
* Tesla falls on warning of challenges of scaling up
production

(Updates to open)
By Shreyashi Sanyal and Devik Jain
Sept 22 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq edged higher
on Tuesday, led by a bounce in shares of Amazon.com and Apple,
while uncertainty over more U.S. fiscal stimulus kept trading in
Dow constituents muted.
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O jumped 2.2% after Bernstein upgraded
its stock to "outperform", saying the company will continue to
receive a boost from premium subscribers and third-party
merchants even beyond the pandemic. Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O , Alphabet Inc
GOOGL.O and Facebook Inc FB.O , which together fuelled a Wall
Street rally since a coronavirus-driven crash in March, rose
between 0.3% and 0.9% in early deals.
Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 indexes were trading higher,
with real estate .SPLRCR and consumer discretionary .SPLRCD
leading gains.
"Today is sort of a reassessment day when investors are
going to assess whether this pullback has further to go on the
downside," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA
in New York.
U.S. stocks started the week on the back foot as fears about
a new round of lockdowns in Europe and a stalemate in Congress
over the size and shape of another coronavirus-response bill
dented hopes of a swift economic recovery.
The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX ended just under 9% down from
its record high on Sept. 2, floating above correction territory.
Investors are now bracing for an extended period of market
volatility on concerns over growing political uncertainty in
Washington that have been sharpened by the death of Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "Between now and the (Nov. 3 presidential) election there
will be a lot of uncertainty. You will see a lot of volatility,
a lot of short-term trades," Stovall said.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday will make the
first of three appearances on Capitol Hill this week to address
lawmakers' questions and concerns about the raft of emergency
measures the central bank has taken to help support the economy
during the pandemic. At 10:08 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 11.07 points, or 0.04%, at 27,136.63, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 8.47 points, or 0.26%, at 3,289.53, and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 28.53 points, or 0.26%, at 10,807.33.
Tesla Inc TSLA.O fell 4.4% after Chief Executive Officer
Elon Musk warned about the difficulties of speeding up
production as an expert cautioned the carmaker's increased
reliance on large-scale aluminium parts could bring new
manufacturing challenges. Autozone Inc AZO.N rose 1.3% after the auto parts retailer
reported better-than-expected sales and profit for the fourth
quarter.
Oracle Corp ORCL.N shed 1.2% on report that Beijing was
unlikely to approve a proposed deal by the software maker and
Walmart WMT.N for ByteDance's TikTok. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 1.21-to-1 on the NYSE
and 1.35-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded one new 52-week high and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 13 new highs and 18 new lows.