US STOCKS-S&P 500 slips in choppy trade as energy, financials tumble

* Tech rebounds a bit as bond yields ease further
* GameStop drops ahead of quarterly results
* S&P 500 up about 80% from the lows of pandemic-led crash
* Indexes fall: Dow 0.39%, S&P 500 0.14%, Nasdaq 0.23%
*

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By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 edged lower on
Tuesday in seesaw trade on sliding financial and energy stocks
that have benefitted recently from a sharp rise in market
interest rates, while beaten-down tech stocks rebounded in a
reversal of trends the past few days.
Rates edged lower as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
told U.S. lawmakers that a coming round of post-pandemic price
hikes will not fuel a destructive breakout of persistent
inflation - fears that had driven a recent spike in yields.
Oil prices that slumped more than 3% on worries that new
pandemic curbs and slow vaccine rollouts in Europe will slow a
recovery in demand also pushed the energy sector lower. O/R
Falling yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes from a
14-month high set last week have deflated this year's
outperformance in the financial .SPSY and energy .SPNY
sectors.
Conversely, technology-related shares that had recently
declined sharply on the rising rate environment have recuperated
a bit as yields eased, said Peter Tuz, president of Chase
Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"A lot of these (tech) stocks have seen 10% to 20%
corrections and interest rates have backed off a bit," Tuz said.
"The money seems to be going back into them and out of the
groups that did extremely well the last three months,
specifically financials and energy."
The benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow have rallied
about 79% from their pandemic lows hit exactly a year ago, while
the tech-heavy Nasdaq has doubled in value.
The CBOE volatility index .VIX eased to its lowest level
in 13 months.
"We've seen a very quick movement in (yields) on mostly
fears around inflation and the market is taking a pause here
over the last week," said Jon Adams, senior investment
strategist at BMO Global Asset Management in Chicago.
By 2:36 p.m. EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
fell 126.85 points, or 0.39%, to 32,604.35, the S&P 500 .SPX
lost 5.46 points, or 0.14%, to 3,935.13 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC dropped 30.45 points, or 0.23%, to 13,347.09.
Growth stocks, which include technology shares .RLG , rose
0.4% while underpriced value stocks .RLV fell 0.9%.
Shares of GameStop Corp GME.N dropped 4.1% ahead of the
company's fourth-quarter results due after markets close. The
videogame retailer announced the exit of its chief customer
officer in the latest sign of a broader overhaul into an
e-commerce firm. ViacomCBS Inc VIAC.O tumbled about 5% after the media firm
launched $3 billion stock deals to raise capital for investments
in streaming. U.S.-listed shares of Chinese internet search provider Baidu
Inc BIDU.O slid 1.5% following a flat Hong Kong debut as
investors were wary of a fundraising flurry in the city and
questioned the company's growth plans. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
2.70-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 4.33-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 11 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 43 new highs and 71 new lows.