US STOCKS-Wall St gains amid economic hopes; tech shares decline

(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click LIVE/ or
type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* Tech shares decline
* Banks stocks surge as investors search for value
* Indexes: Dow up 1.3%, S&P up 0.7%, Nasdaq up 0.1%

(Updates to late afternoon)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
May 27 (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 rose on Wednesday,
powered by banks stocks, as optimism for an economic recovery as
lockdowns continued to ease overshadowed worries of simmering
U.S.-China tensions.
Declines in technology shares limited the advance, with the
Nasdaq underperforming the other major indexes.
The S&P 500 financial index .SPSY provided the biggest
boost to the benchmark index, sending it past the
psychologically key 3,000 level in intraday trading for a second
day in a row. In contrast, heavyweights Amazon.com AMZN.O ,
Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Facebook Inc FB.O , which have led
the recent rally, were down.
"It's the tech stocks that are probably most sensitive to
Chinese growth," said Sameer Samana, senior global market
strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis.
"If the market is going to go higher from here, you're going
to have to have broader participation, but you are going to need
those large-cap tech companies to be along for the ride, because
they make up such a large portion of the benchmark," Samana
said.
The easing of lockdowns, optimism about an eventual COVID-19
vaccine and massive U.S. stimulus have powered the recent stock
market rally, with the S&P 500 .SPX on Tuesday ending at its
highest level since early March.
Even so, U.S. tensions with China have cast a cloud on
markets. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Washington
would announce its response to China's planned national security
legislation on Hong Kong before the end of the week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 317.75 points,
or 1.27%, to 25,312.86, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 21.81 points,
or 0.73%, to 3,013.58 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
6.73 points, or 0.07%, to 9,346.95.
Facebook Inc FB.O and Twitter Inc slipped as Trump
threatened to shutter social media companies a day after Twitter
attached a warning to some of his tweets, prompting readers to
fact-check the president's tweets. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
2.70-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.81-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted five new 52-week highs and no new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 35 new highs and eight new lows.