US STOCKS-Technology stocks lead Wall Street higher

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* S&P 500 ~2% away from all-time high
* China stimulus, Mexico tariff relief drive rally
* Symantec falls on Morgan Stanley downgrade
* Indexes up: Dow 0.49%, S&P 0.64%, Nasdaq 0.85%

(Updates to open)
By Aparajita Saxena
June 11 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes rose on
Tuesday, led by technology stocks, on the back of easing trade
tensions with Mexico and signs of more fiscal stimulus in China.
All the major S&P sectors were trading higher, with the
defensive utilities .SPLRCU and real estate .SPLRCR sectors
posting the smallest gains.
Optimism over President Donald Trump's decision late on
Friday to hold off import tariffs on Mexico has helped markets
this week, even though the United States warned it would impose
tariffs if its demands were not satisfied. The benchmark S&P 500 index .SPX is now just about 2% away
from its early May record high and the Dow Jones Industrial
Average .DJI is set to rise for the seventh straight day, its
longest winning streak in 13 months.
"The global markets and the U.S. are following what is
happening in China, and the undertone is that some sort of a
trade deal is not far away," said Peter Cardillo, chief market
economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.
"If a deal isn't reached, then we will be headed for a
negative growth and the Federal Reserve will have no choice but
to cut rates."
The possibility that Trump's hard bargaining on trade with
Beijing and others could push the economy back into recession
have spurred bets of an interest rate cut by the Fed in July,
and two more this year. MMT/
Trump said on Monday he was ready to impose another round of
tariffs on Chinese imports if there was no progress in talks
with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit.
Amid an escalating trade war, Beijing said it would allow
local governments to use proceeds from special bonds as capital
for major investment projects to support the slowing economy.
The news helped U.S. listed Chinese stocks - Alibaba Group
Holdings BABA.N , JD.com Inc JD.O and Baidu Inc BIDU.O -
gain about 2%.
Marquee companies - Facebook Inc FB.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O ,
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Alphabet
Inc GOOGL.O - climbed between 0.5% and 2%.
At 9:56 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 126.80 points, or 0.49%, at 26,189.48. The S&P 500 .SPX
was up 18.54 points, or 0.64%, at 2,905.27 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC was up 66.37 points, or 0.85%, at 7,889.54.
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury yields ticked higher after data
showed producer prices increased solidly for a second straight
month in May, pointing to a steady pickup in underlying
inflation pressures. Interest-rate sensitive banking stocks .SPXBK gained 0.66%
and the broader financial sector rose 0.86%.
Among decliners, Symantec Corp SYMC.O fell 3.2%, the most
among S&P companies, after Morgan Stanley downgraded the
antivirus software maker's stock, citing increased competition.
Raytheon Co RTN.N declined 2.6% after Vertical Research
downgraded shares of the U.S. contractor to "hold".
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.61-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and by a 2.54-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 47 new 52-week highs and no new low,
while the Nasdaq recorded 46 new highs and 30 new lows.