US STOCKS-S&P 500 hits 4,000 on tech power, recovery optimism

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* Weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rise
* Micron jumps after upbeat revenue forecast
* Indexes up: Dow 0.4%, S&P 0.84%, Nasdaq 1.5%

(Updates to early afternoon)
By Devik Jain and Medha Singh
April 1 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 breached the 4,000 mark for
the first time on Thursday, powered by gains in technology
shares and optimism about a pickup in global economic activity.
A mammoth vaccination drive and a massive fiscal stimulus
are expected to drive a recovery in the labor market, prompting
investors to look past latest data that showed a rise in the
number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits last
week. The closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday could show
the U.S. economy added 647,000 jobs in March, on top of a
379,000 increase in February.
The 4,000 level "could be a possible inflection point where
it renews confidence that this bull cycle is not over and that
equities can remain resilient in the face of heightened interest
rates and perhaps a not as extremely accommodative Fed policy,"
said Matt Hanna, portfolio manager at Summit Global Investments.
It took the benchmark index about a year-and-a-half to close
the 1,000-point gap to 4,000, compared with about five years
from 2,000 to 3,000 points.
The blue-chip Dow is just 1% shy off a record high. The
Nasdaq, however, is about 5% below its all-time high as a rapid
rise in U.S. bond yields accelerated a rotation from
richly-valued tech stocks to underpriced economy-linked stocks.
Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors rose, with technology
.SPLRCT , communication services .SPLRCL and energy .SPNY
gaining more than 1%.
"April is usually a pretty good month for the market
historically and I would expect that momentum to continue
especially as we see the economy strengthen," said Larry Adam,
chief investment officer at Raymond James.
Micron Technology Inc MU.O jumped 4.6% after the chipmaker
forecast fiscal third-quarter revenue above Wall Street
estimates due to higher demand for memory chips, thanks to 5G
smartphones and artificial intelligence software. U.S.-listed shares of rival Taiwan Semiconductor TSM.N
rose 3.8% on its plan to invest $100 billion over the next three
years to meet the rising chip demand. The technology-heavy Nasdaq jumped 1.48% as "high flying"
stocks including Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O ,
Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Facebook Inc
FB.O added between 1.1% and 2.4%.
At 10:34 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 123.69 points, or 0.38%, at 33,105.24, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 33.86 points, or 0.85%, at 4,006.84.
The three main indexes are set to close out a
holiday-shortened week with gains, led by Nasdaq. U.S. stock
markets will remain shut for Good Friday holiday.
The CBOE volatility index .VIX slipped below 18 points for
the first time in 14 months, a level last seen before the
coronavirus-driven global financial market meltdown in March
2020.
Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N fell 0.5% after the drugmaker said
it had found a problem with a batch of the drug substance for
its COVID-19 vaccine being produced by Emergent Biosolutions
EBS.N , whose shares tumbled 14%.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.80-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a
2.0-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 20 new 52-week highs and no new lows,
while the Nasdaq recorded 99 new highs and 22 new lows.