US STOCKS-Wall Street rebounds as banks gain following results; chips rally with TSMC

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK, Jan 15 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Thursday after two days of declines as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs shares shot up following upbeat quarterly results, while technology shares climbed after chipmaker TSMC's blockbuster results.

Goldman Sachs GS.N and Morgan Stanley MS.N both reported a rise in quarterly profit, helped by a flurry of dealmaking. Goldman's shares jumped 5.1%, while Morgan Stanley gained 6%.

The S&P 500 banks index .SPXBK was more than 1% higher.

Earlier this week, other banks reported mixed results that weighed on the sector, along with worries about U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed one-year cap that would limit credit-card interest rates to 10%.

The world's main producer of advanced artificial intelligence chips, Taiwan-based TSMC 2330.TW, predicted robust annual growth and flagged more U.S. manufacturing capacity was in the works. U.S.-listed shares of TSMC TSM.N jumped 5.1%.

The S&P 500 technology index .SPLRCT was more than 1% higher and led sector gainers, while an index of semiconductors .SOX was more than 3% higher.

Shares of Nvidia NVDA.O rose 3.1%, while Broadcom AVGO.O gained 1.4%. Chipmaking tool company Applied Materials AMAT.O climbed 7%.

With tech, "there was some worry as far as valuations - that they were getting a little too far ahead of themselves," said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc., an investment advisory firm, based in Toledo, Ohio.
"That's been kind of squashed this morning with the news from Taiwan Semiconductor."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 378.05 points, or 0.76%, to 49,523.22, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 33.55 points, or 0.47%, to 6,959.15 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 132.78 points, or 0.55%, to 23,600.10.

Richly valued tech and growth stocks have lost some momentum recently as investors kicked off the year by chasing bargains.

Both mid-caps and the small-cap Russell 2000 .RUT have been outperforming the S&P 500 so far this year.

The equal-weighted S&P 500 <.SPXEW> has risen about 4% since the end of December, versus an increase of roughly 1% for the S&P 500.

Among other financial companies, BlackRock BLK.N, the world's largest asset manager, gained 6.2% after a rally in markets lifted fee income and pushed its assets under management to a record $14.04 trillion in the fourth quarter.

Results from the banks essentially have kicked off the fourth-quarter U.S. earnings season.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.3-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 664 new highs and 48 new lows on the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 2,841 stocks rose and 1,868 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.52-to-1 ratio.