US STOCKS-Wall St climbs as tech rebound gains momentum, Nike slides

Updates with late morning prices

By Sruthi Shankar and Shashwat Chauhan

Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks climbed on Friday, as a rebound in technology shares gained momentum heading into the final weeks of the year, while Nike tumbled after weak China sales weighed on its quarterly results.

Megacaps extended gains from Thursday, when chipmaker Micron Technology's MU.O strong forecasts re-ignited optimism around AI-related shares, which had recently come under pressure over lofty valuations and funding concerns.

Micron shares touched a record high on Friday, up 5.3%. Nvidia rose 3%, lifting the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX by 2.6%.

"It's been a challenging two weeks as the AI/tech sector came under pressure, but we're beginning to see some stabilization. That should get the ball rolling for the Christmas year-end rally to resume," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital, in New York.

December has traditionally been a strong period for stock markets. Since 1950, the "Santa Claus rally" has seen the S&P 500 rise an average 1.3% over the last five trading days of the year and the first two in January, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.

Not all was bright though. Nike shares NKE.N slumped 9.7% after the sportswear giant reported a drop in gross margins for the second consecutive quarter, hurt by poor sales in China and efforts to reset its product mix.

Lamb Weston LW.N slumped 25% after the frozen fries supplier maintained annual sales forecast for the second time this year amid rising economic uncertainty.

Conagra CAG.N fell 3% after the Slim Jim meat snacks maker reiterated annual sales target after a muted second quarter.

At 11:34 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 302.01 points, or 0.63%, to 48,251.75. The S&P 500 .SPX gained 57.19 points, or 0.84%, to 6,831.87, while the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC advanced 259.97 points, or 1.13%, to 23,266.33.

Investors also drew comfort from U.S. consumer prices rising less than expected in November, but some analysts flagged that the print could be distorted due to the 43-day government shutdown that prevented the collection of October data.

The University of Michigan's final reading on consumer sentiment in December came in at 52.9 on Friday, versus a preliminary estimate of 53.3.

Traders continued to bet on at least two 25-basis-point interest rate cuts next year from the Federal Reserve, according to LSEG data, while assigning a 20% chance to the first reduction as early as January.

Analysts warned of higher volatility on Friday due to "triple witching," which is the quarterly, simultaneous expiration of stock options, stock index futures and stock index options contracts.

Among other stocks, Oracle ORCL.N jumped 7.4% after TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, signed binding agreements to hand control of the short video app's U.S. operations to a group of investors, including the cloud computing giant.

Carnival CCL.N climbed 8.9% after the cruise operator forecast strong annual profit, banking on higher ticket prices and resilient demand from affluent consumers.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.7-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and 1.73-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 12 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 59 new highs and 105 new lows.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

((sruthi.shankar@thomsonreuters.com; Shashwat.Chauhan@thomsonreuters.com))