US STOCKS-Wall St climbs ahead of Amazon, Alphabet earnings; stimulus in focus

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* UPS gains on quarterly profit beat
* Exxon posts first annual loss as publicly listed company
* Amazon, Alphabet among top boosts to S&P 500
* Indexes: Dow 1.27%, S&P 1.29%, Nasdaq 1.36%

(Updates to market open)
By Devik Jain and Medha Singh
Feb 2 (Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes rose on Tuesday,
building on the previous session's momentum, as investors
anticipated strong results from Amazon and Google-parent
Alphabet while also looking for signs of progress on a pandemic
relief package.
Alphabet GOOGL.O , which will report the cost and operating
profit of its Google Cloud business for the first time, added
1.8%, while retail behemoth Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O rose 1.6%.
Shares of both the companies, set to report their
fourth-quarter earnings after market close, were among the top
boosts to the S&P 500 .SPX . The NYSE FANG+TM index .NYFANG
firmed 1%.
Investors are gauging outlooks from big corporations to
justify elevated stock market valuations, at a time when
concerns over a raging pandemic and new coronavirus variants
have triggered fears of a short-term pullback in markets.
Meanwhile, the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives
prepared to take the first step forward on President Joe Biden's
$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package on Tuesday, with a key
vote expected to fast-track the measure through Congress.
"It's the new president's first real test – does he want to
be seen as reaching across the aisle, or does he actually want
to get things done? The markets will be hoping for the latter,"
said Connor Campbell, financial analyst at spreadbetters
Spreadex.
Ten of the 11 major S&P sectors advanced, with economy
linked energy .SPNY , financial .SPSY and industrials
.SPLRCI gaining the most.
At 9:49 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
383.72 points, or 1.27%, to 30,595.63, the S&P 500 .SPX gained
48.81 points, or 1.29%, to 3,822.67 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC gained 182.88 points, or 1.36%, to 13,586.28.
New cases of COVID-19 in the United States fell for a third
week in a row, the first time the country has seen such an
extended decline since last September.
The number of people who have received the first dose of a
COVID-19 vaccine is fast closing in the total infections across
the country, according to U.S. CDC data as of Feb. 1.
"The pandemic news is getting better. The distribution of
vaccines and the pace of vaccinations is improving," said John
Brady, senior vice president at R.J. O'Brien & Associates in
Chicago.
Wall Street's fear gauge .VIX retreated to near one-week
lows as a retail-driven mania for shorted assets showed signs of
fizzling out.
The so-called "meme" stocks GameStop Corp GME.N , AMC
Entertainment AMC.N and Nokia NOK.N tumbled between 7.3% and
45%, while miners Hecla Mining Co HL.N and Coeur Mining Inc
CDE.N tracked a fall in spot silver prices XAG= .
Exxon Mobil Corp XOM.N posted its first annual loss as a
public company after the COVID-19 pandemic hammered energy
prices and reduced the value of its shale gas properties by more
than $20 billion. However, its shares rose 1.5%. United Parcel Service Inc UPS.N gained 4.4% after it beat
quarterly profit estimates on a surge in home delivery volume
due to pandemic-fueled online purchases of holiday gifts and
staples. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.8-to-1 ratio
on the NYSE and by a 2.9-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted 13 new 52-week highs and no new lows
while the Nasdaq recorded 121 new highs and three new lows.