US STOCKS-Tech stocks lift Wall Street as economic rebound slows

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* Weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rise to 870,000
* Nikola slides after Wedbush downgrade
* Accenture drops, BlackBerry rises on quarterly earnings
* Indexes up: Dow 0.39%, S&P 0.54%, Nasdaq 0.81%

(Updates to early afternoon)
By Sagarika Jaisinghani and Devik Jain
Sept 24 (Reuters) - Wall Street climbed in choppy trading on
Thursday, with investors returning to the perceived safety of
technology-related stocks as a surprise rise in weekly jobless
claims signaled a slowdown in economic growth.
Nine of the 11 major S&P indexes were trading higher, with
information technology .SPLRCT leading gains.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Netflix Inc
NFLX.O , Nvidia Corp NVDA.O and Facebook Inc .FB.O , which
have outperformed at a time of increased economic uncertainty,
rose between 0.5% and 2.7%.
"Investors are going to be needing stocks that can weather a
lower growth path because if we don't get another round of
fiscal stimulus, there's not going to be a lot more we can do to
continue boosting the economic recovery," said Max Gokhman,
capital markets strategist at Pacific Life Fund Advisors.
Waning hopes of more fiscal stimulus, signs of a faltering
business recovery and a sell-off in technology-related names
have weighed on U.S. stocks this month.
The S&P 500 briefly fell 10% below its intraday record high
hit on Sept. 2. If the benchmark index closes at that level, it
will enter correction territory.
Dow constituents, considered a barometer of economic
confidence, lagged the S&P 500 on Thursday as data showed
870,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits in the week ended
Sept. 19, up from 866,000 in the previous week. Job cuts have spread to industries such as financial
services and technology that were not initially impacted by the
mandated business closures in mid-March because of insufficient
demand. At 12:32 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 0.39%, the S&P 500 .SPX was up 0.54% and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 0.81%.
The CBOE volatility index .VIX , which is hovering near
two-week highs, is expected to climb in the run up to the
quarter end next week.
"The key is the VIX index, which has not yet reached levels
that would suggest a continued strong move to the downside,"
said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital
Securities in New York.
"So you might get a day of bargain hunting followed by a day
of selling, but as the last days of September come into place,
we should begin to see some sort of window dressing by
institutions."
Homebuilders .SPHOME climbed 0.8% as sales of new
single-family homes increased to their highest level in nearly
14 years last month. Nikola Corp NKLA.O , which is set for its biggest weekly
decline ever, shed another 4.3% as Wedbush downgraded the stock
to "underperform". Accenture Plc ACN.N fell 6.4% after the IT consulting firm
forecast current-quarter revenue below expectations, while,
U.S.-listed shares of Canadian security software firm BlackBerry
Ltd BB.N jumped 5% after it posted a surprise rise in
quarterly revenue. Declining issues nearly matched advancers on the NYSE and
the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded no new 52-week highs and two new
lows, while the Nasdaq recorded seven new highs and 116 new
lows.