US STOCKS-S&P, Dow muted with eyes on more stimulus, Powell address

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* Pelosi, Mnuchin to continue stimulus talks on Tuesday
* Powell to speak at National Association for Business
Economics
* BioNTech jumps on rolling EU review of vaccine candidate
* Indexes: Dow up 0.21%, S&P off 0.11%, Nasdaq down 0.40%

(Updates to open)
By Devik Jain
Oct 6 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and the Dow hovered at near
three-week highs on Tuesday as investors looked for signs that
Washington was close to agreeing on more fiscal stimulus, while
a selloff in some of the biggest technology stocks weighed on
the Nasdaq.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin spoke by phone on Monday about fresh relief measures and
were preparing to talk again on Tuesday. Six of the 11 major S&P indexes were trading higher, with
gains led by the battered energy sector .SPNY . Real estate
.SPLRCR and communication services .SPLRCL were among the
biggest decliners in early trading.
"(There) seems to be a slight reduction in risk to the
markets rather than a positive catalyst driving things higher,"
said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent
Advisor Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Comments from officials that a stimulus deal was still
possible had lifted the three main stock indexes on Monday,
helping them recoup losses from last week that were sparked by
news that President Donald Trump had contracted COVID-19.
Trump returned to the White House on Monday from the Walter
Reed Medical Center military hospital, but faced fresh backlash
for removing his mask upon his return and urging Americans not
to fear the disease that has killed more than 209,000 in the
United States. All eyes later in the morning will be on an address by
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at a virtual meeting of the
National Association for Business Economics, where global
central bankers are likely to present their plans about how much
more they can do to prevent an economic depression. At 9:50 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was
up 0.21%, the S&P 500 .SPX was down 0.11% and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was down 0.40%.
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O , Facebook Inc
FB.O and Google-owner Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O , which have
together dominated Wall Street's recovery from its
coronavirus-induced lows in March, fell between 0.7% and 1.4%.
The companies have faced intense regulatory scrutiny into
their quest for global market share, and the U.S. House of
Representatives' antitrust report contains a "thinly veiled call
to break up" the companies, Republican Congressman Ken Buck said
in a draft response seen by Reuters. U.S.-listed shares of BioNTech BNTX.O jumped 7.0% after
the European health regulator said it had started a real-time
review of the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the German
biotech firm and U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc PFE.N . Pfizer's
shares rose 0.1%. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC.N gained 1.2% after the
largest theater chain in the world said most of its theaters in
the United States and Europe would remain open, with several
releases lined up for October and November. Shares of audio device makers Sonos Inc SONO.O and
Logitech LOGN.S fell 3.6% and 4.8%, respectively, after their
speakers were removed from Apple's online stores. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 2.37-to-1 on the NYSE
and 1.78-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 15 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 71 new highs and three new lows.