US STOCKS-Wall Street jumps, with tech leading the advance

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* Kraft Heinz slumps after pulling FY forecast
* Symantec gains on Broadcom talks report
* AMD lands Alphabet, Twitter as customers
* Lyft , Uber jump on hints of end to price war
* Indexes up: Dow 1.1%, S&P 500 1.6%, Nasdaq 2%

(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments;
changes byline, adds dateline)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks jumped on Thursday,
led by a more than 2% gain in technology shares, while
better-than-expected economic data in the United States and
China helped to offset worries about the trade war.
The S&P 500 technology sector .SPLRCT , which was at the
heart of the recent selloff, provided the biggest boost to the
benchmark S&P 500 index, which was on course for its third day
of gains.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD.O gained 14.7% after the
chipmaker launched its second generation of processor chip and
said that it had landed Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google and
Twitter Inc TWTR.N as customers. Symantec Corp SYMC.O jumped 11.6% after sources said
chipmaker Broadcom Inc AVGO.O was in advanced talks to buy the
cybersecurity company's enterprise business. "The overnight action was positive. That, along with the
bounceback yesterday, gave us a nice tailwind coming into the
market today, both for high-frequency traders who were buying
the trend and also for bargain hunters who had seen stocks that
were on the watchlist come down to a level that looked
attractive," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T
Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.
"So we've seen a lot of the tech names pop after they got
hammered. There's money coming back into those because investors
have decided it created an opportunity."
U.S. data pointed to a robust labor market as the number of
Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits
unexpectedly fell last week, allaying some worries about a
recession and helping U.S. Treasury yields rise. That followed better-than-expected export numbers out of
China and some improvement for the country's yuan currency,
whose slide over the weekend spurred Wall Street's worst day so
far this year on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 285.32 points,
or 1.1%, to 26,292.39, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 45.67 points,
or 1.58%, to 2,929.65 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
154.78 points, or 1.97%, to 8,017.61.
On the down side, Kraft Heinz sank after it pulled its
full-year forecast and wrote down the value of several business
units by over $1 billion, capping a rough few months for the
company.
Lyft Inc LYFT.O advanced 4.1% after the ride-hailing
service raised its annual outlook and hinted at the end of its
price war with Uber Technologies Inc UBER.N . Uber, due to
report after the bell and a high-profile loser since its market
launch this year, rose 7.5%. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
4.32-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.52-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 38 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 77 new highs and 84 new lows.