US STOCKS-S&P 500, Dow climb for third day and close at records

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* Growth stocks set to outperform value for the second week
* Honeywell gains as brokerages raise price targets
* March PPI above expectations

(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments
to close)
By Chuck Mikolajczak
April 9 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Dow rose on Friday
to close at record highs, posting a third straight weekly rise
partly on lift from growth stocks, with a late-day rally
building gains ahead of quarterly earnings season next week."
Growth names .RLG have found their footing over the past
two weeks after being outperformed by value stocks .RLV for
most of the year. A pullback in the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield
from a 14-month high hit in late March encouraged buying in
growth. Data showed U.S. producer prices increased more than
expected in March, bringing the largest annual gain in 9-1/2
years. Many investors now expect higher inflation as vaccine
rollouts help the U.S. economy rebound from coronavirus-fueled
lockdowns, yet stocks showed little concern as the Federal
Reserve has maintained it will allow inflation to overshoot its
target. "This is why all week long (Powell) was jawboning, he made
sure everyone understood they were expecting a spike and they
are ready for it, it wasn't a surprise," said Ken Polcari,
managing partner at Kace Capital Advisors in Jupiter, Florida.
"Which is why the market is not backing off, because he
succeeded in jawboning the anxiety and stopped people from
getting really panicked about it."
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
299.21 points, or 0.89%, to 33,802.78, the S&P 500 .SPX gained
31.58 points, or 0.77%, to 4,128.75 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 70.88 points, or 0.51%, to 13,900.19.
The banks will kick off first-quarter earnings season next
week with Goldman Sachs GS.N , JPMorgan JPM.N and wells Fargo
WFC.N scheduled to report on Wednesday. Analysts expect
profits for S&P 500 firms to show a 25% jump from a year
earlier, according to Refinitiv IBES data. That would be the
strongest performance for the quarter since 2018.
Megacap names such as Apple AAPL.O , Amazon AMZN.O and
Microsoft MSFT.O , which are in the growth index, advanced to
pace the S&P 500. Amazon shares rose as warehouse workers in
Alabama rejected an attempt to form a union. The Russell 1000 growth index, made up largely of technology
stocks, outperformed its value counterpart .RLV , made up
mostly of cyclical stocks such as financials .SPSY and energy
.SPNY names, for a second week following the pullback in
longer-dated Treasury yields. Bank of America's weekly fund flow figures showed investors
have pumped more money into equities over the past five months
than in the last 12 years. Gains in Honeywell HON.N helped lift the Dow as Jefferies
and J.P. Morgan raised their price targets on the U.S. aero
parts maker's shares.