US STOCKS-Wall Street gains on Amazon boost, despite worries over economy

* Dow up 0.28%, S&P 500 up 0.73%, Nasdaq up 1.22%
* Amazon rises as Bernstein says pandemic tailwind to
continue
* Tesla falls after warning of production challenges
* Real estate, consumer discretionary lead sectoral gains

(Updates comment)
By Herbert Lash
Sept 22 (Reuters) - Wall Street stocks rebounded on Tuesday,
led by a jump in Amazon.com, even as a likely delay in the
passage of new fiscal stimulus by Congress dampened hopes of a
faster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O jumped 5.0% after Bernstein upgraded
the stock to "outperform," saying the company will continue to
receive a boost from premium subscribers and third-party
merchants even once the pandemic is contained. Microsoft Corp MSFT.O , Apple Inc AAPL.O , Alphabet Inc
GOOGL.O and Facebook Inc FB.O , which together have fueled
Wall Street's rally since the coronavirus-driven crash in March,
rose between 0.3% and 2%.
"The market is looking for some stability. Once again
investors and traders are going to look to names that had gotten
unduly beaten up," said Kenny Polcari, chief market strategist
at SlateStone Wealth LLC in Jupiter, Florida.
Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes were trading
higher, led by real estate .SPLRCR and consumer discretionary
.SPLRCD .
U.S. stocks extended a three-week losing streak on Monday as
fears of a new round of lockdowns in Europe and the stalemate in
Congress over the size and shape of another coronavirus-response
bill dented hopes of a swift economic recovery.
The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX on Monday closed almost 9%
below the record high hit Sept. 2, putting it a little more than
a percentage point away from sliding into correction territory.
Investors are now bracing for an extended period of market
volatility on concerns over growing political uncertainty in
Washington that have been sharpened by the death of Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "All the political energies are going to be directed towards
the next Supreme Court nomination. I don't see them paying
attention to that and pushing stimulus through at the same
time," said Mike Zigmont, head of trading and research at
Harvest Volatility Management in New York.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday told a
congressional panel that the economy had shown "marked
improvement" since the coronavirus pandemic drove it into
recession, but the path ahead remains uncertain and the U.S.
central bank will do more if needed. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans also warned that the
economy risks a longer, slower recovery, if not another outright
recession, if Congress fails to pass a fiscal package.
At 2:29 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
rose 76.96 points, or 0.28%, to 27,224.66, the S&P 500 .SPX
gained 23.8 points, or 0.73%, to 3,304.86 and the Nasdaq
Composite .IXIC added 131.88 points, or 1.22%, to 10,910.68.
Tesla Inc TSLA.O fell 4.3% after Chief Executive Elon Musk
warned about the difficulties of speeding up production as an
expert cautioned that the electric carmaker's increased reliance
on large-scale aluminum parts could bring new manufacturing
challenges.
Oracle Corp ORCL.N shed 1.0% on a report by a state-backed
Chinese newspaper that Beijing was unlikely to approve a
proposed deal by the software maker and Walmart WMT.N for
ByteDance's TikTok. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.12-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.14-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week highs and no new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 25 new highs and 48 new lows.