US STOCKS-Nasdaq, S&P 500 edge higher on Amazon boost; Dow under pressure

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* Dow off 0.31%, S&P 500 up 0.08%, Nasdaq up 0.16%
* Amazon rises as Bernstein says pandemic tailwind to
continue
* Tesla falls on warning of challenges of scaling up
production
* Real estate, consumer discretionary lead sectoral gains

(Adds comments, updates prices throughout)
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, while
uncertainty over more U.S. fiscal stimulus kept trading in Dow
constituents muted.
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O jumped 2.7% 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 , 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 0.7% and 1.8%.
"The market is looking for some stability. Once again
investors and traders are going to look to names that had gotten
unduly beaten up," said Kenny Polcari, managing partner at Kace
Capital Advisors in Boca Raton, Florida.
Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 indexes were trading higher,
with real estate .SPLRCR and consumer discretionary .SPLRCD
leading gains.
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," said Sam Stovall, chief investment
strategist at CFRA in New York.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday told a
congressional panel that America's economy had shown "marked
improvement" since the coronavirus pandemic drove it into
recession, but the path ahead remains uncertain and the U.S.
central bank will do more if needed. At 11:26 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
down 85.05 points, or 0.31%, at 27,062.65, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 2.50 points, or 0.08%, at 3,283.56 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 17.23 points, or 0.16%, at 10,796.03.
Tesla Inc TSLA.O fell 6% 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 1.7% on report that Beijing was
unlikely to approve a proposed deal by the software maker and
Walmart WMT.N for ByteDance's TikTok. Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.12-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and for a 1.73-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded one new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 16 new highs and 36 new lows.