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

* Weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rise to 870,000
* U.S. new-home sales vault to near 14-year high
* Nikola slides after Wedbush downgrade
* Accenture drops, BlackBerry rises on quarterly earnings

(Updates to close of U.S. market)
By Herbert Lash
Sept 24 (Reuters) - Wall Street rallied in a rocky session
on Thursday as beaten-down technology shares gained favor after
data showing a surge in the sale of new homes revived faith in
the economic recovery even as U.S. jobless claims rose
unexpectedly.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Nvidia Corp
NVDA.O and Facebook Inc .FB.O , stocks that have outperformed
at a time of increased economic uncertainty, all rose.
"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 shares
have weighed on investors sentiment this month.
Wall Street started the day lower after the jobless claims
data, with the S&P 500 briefly falling 10% below the intraday
record peak it hit Sept. 2 for the second time in recent days.
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. Homebuilders .SPHOME climbed as sales of new single-family
homes rose to their highest level in nearly 14 years in August.
The Commerce Department report follows data this week showing
sales of previously owned homes also near a 14-year high.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
51.65 points, or 0.19%, to 26,814.78, the S&P 500 .SPX gained
9.6 points, or 0.30%, to 3,246.52, and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC added 39.28 points, or 0.37%, to 10,672.27.
The CBOE volatility index .VIX , known as Wall Street's
fear gauge and 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."
Nikola Corp NKLA.O , which is set for its biggest weekly
decline ever, slid sharply as Wedbush downgraded the stock to
"underperform." Accenture Plc ACN.N fell after the IT consulting firm
forecast current-quarter revenue below expectations, while
U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry Ltd BB.N initially jumped
after the Canadian security software firm posted a surprise rise
in quarterly revenue.