US STOCKS-Techs lead Wall St higher; Intel up after results

                                
  
                                
 * Oracle shares jump 2.4 after target price hike
                                
 * Intel beats estimates, shares up after the bell
                                
 * U.S. retail sales fall in Dec, jobless claims up in week
                                
 * Dow up 0.3 pct, S&P up 0.2 pct, Nasdaq up 0.4 pct
                                
 * For up-to-the-minute market news, click [STXNEWS/US]
 (Recasts, updates with Intel results, volume)
                                
 By Rodrigo Campos
                                
 NEW YORK, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Technology shares drove Wall
Street higher on Thursday on bets ahead of Intel's quarterly
results that business spending will bolster profits in the
sector.
                                
 Intel Corp <INTC.O>, a Dow component and the world's
largest chipmaker, after the bell reported a quarterly profit
that beat expectations. Its shares had risen 2.5 percent ahead
of the results.
                                
 Intel results "tell you a lot about what companies are
capable of doing post-recession," said Marc Pado, U.S. market
strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co in San Francisco.
                                
 "Even on flat revenues companies are going to make money.
That's the coattail that Intel is going to have for everybody
tomorrow."
                                
 Software was also boosted in regular trading after Morgan
Stanley added Oracle Corp <ORCL.O>, the world's No. 2 business
software maker behind Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O>, to its "best
ideas" list and raised its price target.
                                
 Oracle gained 2.5 percent to $25.37 and Microsoft rose 2
percent to $30.96, leading gains in the Nasdaq <.IXIC>.
                                
 The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> added 29.78 points,
or 0.28 percent, to 10,710.55. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index
<.SPX> rose 2.78 points, or 0.24 percent, to 1,148.46. The
Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> gained 8.84 points, or 0.38
percent, to 2,316.74.
                                
 After the bell, Intel shares gained 1.7 percent to $21.85
and stock futures ticked higher as trading resumed after 4:30
p.m. (2130 GMT). Shares of Advanced Micro Devices <AMD.N> , an
Intel rival, and Microsoft also rose in after-hours trade.
                                
 During regular trading, the market rose despite an
unexpected drop in December U.S. retail sales and an increase
in new jobless claims last week that topped estimates. For
details see [ID:nN14168822].
                                
 "The market was able to shrug off the data because as long
as news is bad, government stimulus will keep coming," said
Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at
ChannelCapitalResearch.com in Shrewsbury, New Jersey.
                                
 In the financial sector, the KBW bank index <.BKX> was up
1.6 percent, led mainly by regional and mid-size banks.
Comerica Inc <CMA.N> jumped 2.9 percent to $34.13 after
brokerage Raymond James upgraded its stock.
                                
 Bank shares were in the spotlight after U.S. President
Barack Obama on Thursday proposed a fee to make big banks repay
taxpayers for bailouts. [ID:nN14190937]
                                
 The sector had fallen earlier in the week on speculation
about the fee.
                                
 On the New York Stock Exchange nearly 890 million shares
changed hands, below last year's estimated daily average of
2.18 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 2.29 billion shares traded,
above last year's daily average of 1.63 billion.
                                
 Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by
a ratio of about 4 to 3, while on the Nasdaq nearly 7 stocks
rose for every 5 that fell.
 (Additional reporting by Ellis Mnyandu; Editing by Leslie
Adler)