US STOCKS-Wall Street climbs on stimulus hopes; S&P 500 on track for weekly gains

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* Pelosi says stimulus talks would resume with Mnuchin
* Xilinx surges on report of buyout offer by AMD
* Indexes up: Dow 0.5%, S&P 0.7%, Nasdaq 1.1%

(Updates to late afternoon)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
Oct 9 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday and the S&P 500
was on track for a second straight week of gains as optimism
over more federal fiscal aid gathered momentum.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would resume talks
on a possible COVID-19 stimulus package with Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin later on Friday, with a report saying Mnuchin
will present $1.8 trillion in counter offer. Recent trading on Wall Street has been dictated by headlines
on fiscal aid, with the three main indexes tumbling on Tuesday
after U.S. President Donald Trump called off negotiations. He
has since indicated he was willing to resume discussions.
"The market's reacting well to Trump's sudden turnaround in
terms of a support package and this new package that he proposed
that's much larger than previously," said Tim Ghriskey, chief
investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York, New
York.
"It probably shows some desperation on his part. A lot of
this has been politics, but a lot of people believe the economy
really needs some economic support here, so that's a good
thing."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 128.45 points,
or 0.45%, to 28,553.96, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 25.23 points,
or 0.73%, to 3,472.06 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
127.11 points, or 1.11%, to 11,548.09.
Energy stocks .SPNY fell more than 1% following recent
gains.
Strategists say investors have also begun to digest the
possibility of Democratic candidate Joe Biden winning the Nov. 3
preidential election after a fractious debate last month led to
a jump in his lead over Trump in several national polls.
In company news, Xilinx Inc XLNX.O surged 13.8% after a
report said Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD.O was in talks to
buy the chipmaker in a deal valued at more than $30 billion.
Shares of AMD fell. General Electric Co GE.N jumped 2.3% as a report said
Goldman Sachs reinstated coverage on the U.S. industrial
conglomerate with a "buy" rating, saying the company will emerge
stronger from the COVID-19 pandemic. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.27-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.41-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 75 new 52-week highs and one new low; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 135 new highs and 16 new lows.