US STOCKS-Wall St advances on stimulus bets ahead of busy earnings week

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* Moderna up as late-stage study for COVID-19 vaccine begins
* Hasbro tumbles after profit miss
* Senate Republicans likely to unveil $1 trillion aid
proposal
* Indexes up: Dow 0.35%, S&P 0.46%, Nasdaq 0.94%

(Updates to early afternoon)
By Medha Singh and Devik Jain
July 27 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes gained on
Monday as investors looked past surging U.S. COVID-19 cases,
betting instead on more stimulus to revive a battered domestic
economy ahead of a week packed with quarterly earnings reports.
Apple Inc AAPL.O , Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O , Facebook Inc
FB.O and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O rose between 0.5% and 0.9%,
and were among the top boosts to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The
four FAANG companies are among the 189 S&P 500 companies
expected to report results this week.
About 80% of the 130 S&P 500 firms that have reported so far
have beaten a low bar of earnings estimates, according to IBES
Refinitiv data.
"It's probably going to be the biggest week of the year in
terms of what people are expecting due to the impact from the
coronavirus outbreak," said Brian Pirri, principal at New
England Investment and Retirement Group in Boston.
"I don't think we're going to see a slowdown in technology
stocks. There was some profit taking due to high valuations, but
I don't see them going away anytime soon."
Safe haven assets were in demand with gold prices at record
levels amid concerns over a diplomatic row between the United
States and China, escalating COVID-19 cases in southern and
western U.S. states and an unexpected rise in U.S. jobless
claims last week. GOL/
Trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary stimulus have
been pivotal in bringing the S&P 500 to within 5% of its
February record high.
Later in the day, U.S. Senate Republicans are likely to
unveil their $1 trillion coronavirus aid package, which would be
negotiated with Democrats, ahead of the expiry of enhanced
unemployment benefits on Friday. "The market is factoring in the fact that there's going to
be some kind of extension of around one-and-a-half to 2 trillion
dollars of total aid, and if that does not occur it would be a
near-term negative catalyst," said Mike Mussio, president at FBB
Capital Partners in Bethesda, Maryland.
Expectations are running low for any major announcement at a
two-day Federal Reserve meeting, but policymakers are likely to
lay the groundwork for more action later this year, analysts
said. At 12:48 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
was up 92.63 points, or 0.35%, at 26,562.52, the S&P 500 .SPX
was up 14.70 points, or 0.46%, at 3,230.33. The Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC was up 97.49 points, or 0.94%, at 10,460.67.
Materials stocks .SPLRCM rose 1.1%, more than any other
S&P sector, boosted by the shares of gold miners. Financials
.SPSY , utilities .SPLRCU and energy .SPNY were the only
sectors in the red.
Moderna Inc MRNA.O jumped 7.7% as it started a U.S.
government-backed late-stage trial to assess its COVID-19
vaccine candidate in about 30,000 adults. Hasbro Inc HAS.O dropped 7.5% after the toymaker missed
quarterly results estimates, hit by production shutdowns due to
coronavirus lockdowns. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 1.36-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and a 1.16-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P recorded 15 new 52-week highs and no new low, while
the Nasdaq recorded 49 new highs and 21 new lows.