US STOCKS-S&P 500 posts biggest daily gain in two months as rebound continues

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* Kraft Heinz slumps after pulling full-year forecast
* AMD lands Alphabet, Twitter as customers
* Indexes up: Dow 1.4%, S&P 500 1.9%, Nasdaq 2.2%

(Updates to close)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 registered its
largest one-day percentage gain in about two months on Thursday,
with technology shares providing the biggest boost as equities
continued to rebound along with bond yields.
All major sectors advanced at least 1%, and the S&P 500
technology index .SPLRCT , which was at the heart of the recent
sell-off, climbed 2.4%.
The benchmark S&P 500 extended a rebound that began on
Wednesday and closed near its high of the day. The index gained
4% from Wednesday's intraday bottom to Thursday's close.
Strategists said stock market futures strengthened heading
into the day, and bargain hunters stepped in to snap up
beaten-down shares.
"The overnight action was positive. That, along with the
bounce back yesterday, gave us a nice tailwind coming into the
market today, both for high-frequency traders who were buying
the trend and also for bargain hunters who had seen stocks that
were on the watchlist come down to a level that looked
attractive," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T
Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.
"So we've seen a lot of the tech names pop after they got
hammered."
Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD.O gained 16.2% after the
chipmaker launched its second generation of processor chip and
said that it had landed Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google and
Twitter Inc TWTR.N as customers. Symantec Corp SYMC.O jumped 12.3% after sources said
chipmaker Broadcom Inc AVGO.O was in advanced talks to buy the
cybersecurity company's enterprise business. After the bell,
Symantec confirmed the sale. U.S. economic data pointed to a robust labor market as the
number of Americans filing applications for unemployment
benefits unexpectedly fell last week, allaying some worries
about the potential for a recession and helping U.S. Treasury
yields rise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 371.12 points,
or 1.43%, to 26,378.19, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 54.11 points,
or 1.88%, to 2,938.09 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
176.33 points, or 2.24%, to 8,039.16.
Better-than-expected export numbers out of China also helped
offset recent U.S.-China trade war worries, while there was also
some improvement in the country's yuan currency, whose slide
over the weekend led to Wall Street's worst day so far this year
on Monday. On the down side, Kraft Heinz KHC.O sank after it pulled
its full-year forecast and wrote down the value of several
business units by over $1 billion. Lyft Inc LYFT.O advanced 3.0% after the ride-hailing
service raised its annual outlook and hinted at the end of its
price war with Uber Technologies Inc UBER.N . Uber, which reported earnings after the bell and has been a
high-profile loser since its market launch this year, rose 8.2%
during the session. The company reported revenue that missed
analysts' estimates, sending its shares down 6.9% after the
close. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
4.47-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.69-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 42 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 80 new highs and 96 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 8.08 billion shares, compared
with the 7.2 billion-share average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.