US STOCKS-Wall St gains, Nasdaq hits record high as holiday shopping begins

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* Black Friday kicks off in abbreviated session
* Disney drops after layoffs announcement
* S&P, Dow, Nasdaq up for the week
* Indexes up: Dow 0.13%, S&P 0.24%, Nasdaq 0.92%

(Updates with closing prices)
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Wall Street stocks advanced,
with the Nasdaq closing at a record high, on Friday in a
holiday-shortened week as retailers kicked off the year-end
shopping season amid record COVID-19 hospitalizations.
The Nasdaq outperformed as investors favored tech-related,
market-leading stocks that have fared well during the pandemic,
while economically sensitive cyclical stocks weighed.
All three indexes rose for the week, in which the S&P 500
.SPX reached a new closing high and the blue-chip Dow ended
above 30,000 for the first time ever.
"It's an abbreviated session and volume is light, so the
only conclusion is that the rally is not faltering for now,"
said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital
Securities in New York.
"It does bode well for next month," Cardillo added. "Will we
see a Santa rally? Most likely. Will it be as robust as
November? That's a big question mark."
Retailers opened their doors to Black Friday shoppers, with
social distancing practices and other measures put in place to
mitigate infection risks, while offering steep discounts.
"Black Friday has been somewhat tarnished - traffic is down
due to the pandemic - but the good news is e-commerce sales have
reached a new record," Cardillo said. "That's encouraging."
In the latest development on the road toward developing a
vaccine against COVID-19, Britain gave drugmaker AstraZeneca
AZN.L the green light after experts raised questions about the
vaccine's trial data. As U.S. hospitalizations for coronavirus set a grim record
of more than 89,000, the race for a medical solution to the
pandemic has led to promising vaccines from Pfizer Inc PFE.N ,
Moderna Inc MRNA.O and others, fueling optimism for light at
the end of the tunnel.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 37.9 points, or
0.13%, to 29,910.37; the S&P 500 .SPX gained 8.7 points, or
0.24%, at 3,638.35; and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
111.44 points, or 0.92%, at 12,205.85.
Of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, healthcare companies
.SXHCT enjoyed the largest percentage gains while energy
shares .SPNY had the biggest percentage loss.
Chipmaker stocks, which have been resilient throughout the
global health crisis, once again outperformed the broader
market, with the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index rising
1.2%.
Shares of Walt Disney Co DIS.N dipped 1.3% after the
company said it would lay off about 32,000 workers, up from the
28,000 announced previously. Jobs will be cut mainly at Disney's
theme parks. Tesla Inc TSLA.O built on its recent rally, its shares
advancing 2.0% even as U.S. regulators opened an investigation
into front suspension issues in about 115,000 Tesla vehicles.
U.S.-listed shares of iQIYI Inc IQ.O fell 1.7% after
Reuters reported Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA.N and Tencent
Holdings Ltd 0700.HK had put on hold talks to buy a
controlling stake in the video streaming service. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a
1.36-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.73-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 23 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 154 new highs and nine new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.82 billion shares, compared
with the 11.03 billion average over the last 20 trading days.