US STOCKS-Wall Street rebounds after two-day decline; Netflix slides
* Netflix falls as subscriber growth slows
* Verizon shares fall after Q1 results
* Indexes up: Dow 0.78%, S&P 500 0.69%, Nasdaq 0.76% (Adds market pricing to mid-afternoon)
By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, April 21 (Reuters) - Wall Street rallied on Wednesday, rebounding from a two-day decline, as a tilt toward stocks poised to benefit from a recovering economy offset Netflix Inc's sell-off after its disappointing results.
Intuitive Surgical Inc surged 9.9% to an all-time high as its results trounced estimates. The maker of robotic surgical systems vied with Microsoft Corp and Tesla Inc for much of the session as the biggest contributor to the S&P 500's upside.
Shares of Netflix fell 7.2% after the world's largest streaming service said slower production of TV shows and movies during the pandemic hurt subscriber growth in the first quarter.
Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors rose, with communication services, led by Netflix, and the defensive utilities sectors falling. Economically sensitive value stocks rose 1.0%, outpacing the 0.5% gain in growth as seen by the Russell 1000 indexes.
"You take Netflix out of today's equation, it's simply a broad-based rally," said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade, adding technology shares still had room to run.
The VIX, CBOE's market volatility index, slid below 18, suggesting the market in days to come could be range-bound while also shrugging off a rebound in COVID infections, he said.
Analysts expect S&P 500 companies to post first-quarter earnings growth of 30.9% from a year earlier, Refinitiv IBES data shows. Netflix's results dashed some expectations but technology remained a hot spot.
"Investors feel more confident of the earnings growth prospects for technology," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York. "They would rather gravitate toward the sure thing, which right now is tech stocks."
By 2:40 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 263.26 points, or 0.78%, to 34,084.56; the S&P 500 gained 28.49 points, or 0.69%, at 4,163.43; and the Nasdaq Composite added 104.20 points, or 0.76%, at 13,890.46.
Verizon Communications Inc dropped 0.3% after it lost more wireless subscribers than expected in the first quarter. Shares of T-Mobile US Inc and AT&T Inc rose.
U.S. railroad operator CSX Corp fell 4.4% after it missed estimates for first-quarter profit, hurt by frigid polar vortex temperatures, ongoing pandemic disruptions and higher fuel costs.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3.49-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.33-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 79 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 60 new highs and 52 new lows. (Reporting by Herbert Lash, additional reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal and Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva, Sriraj Kalluvila and Arun Koyyur and Richard Chang)
