LIVE MARKETS-A very British session

* S&P 500, Nasdaq rise; Dow dips

* Tech leads S&P 500 sector gains; energy biggest loser

* Euro STOXX 600 ends up ~0.6%

* Dollar down; gold up, crude slips

* U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield ~1.64%

April 8 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com

A VERY BRITISH SESSION (1159 EDT/1559 GMT)

Investors in British stocks have had a tough ride in the last month with UK PLC stubbornly underperforming the continent despite a flurry of analysts calling to buy cheap/value and cyclical London-listed stocks.

Going overweight on the FTSE 250 mid-cap doesn't look like such a bad idea now with the index reaching another fresh record high at 22,247 today, with a 0.4% rise.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index has also scored one of the session's biggest rises, up 0.83% against 0.58% for the pan-European STOXX 600 index.

Sure, year-to-date both the FTSE 100 (+7.46%) and the FTSE 250 (+8.59%) are behind the STOXX 600 (+9.48%) but there clearly seems to be favourable tailwind coming in for Britain.

"While other major indices have led the way in posting record highs in recent weeks, UK stocks appear to be finally finding favour with investors as an economic reopening beckons", said Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK.

Here's UK PLC catching up:

(Julien Ponthus)

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THE LABOR MARKET'S CASE OF THE HICCUPS (1105 EDT/1505 GMT)

The Labor Department followed Friday's blowout March employment report with decidedly less sunny claims data.

The number of U.S. workers filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly increased last week to 744,000, inching up from the previous week's upwardly revised 728,000 and 64,000 more than consensus.

The disappointing number comes on the heels of Friday's blowout employment report, which provided evidence that labor market conditions are improving rapidly as vaccines roll out, economies reopen and stimulus goes into effect.

Even so, jobless claims have been worse than the darkest week of the Great Recession for over a year and the U.S. economy has yet to replace 8.4 million - more than one third - of the jobs lost when pandemic-related shutdowns brought economic activity to a grinding halt.

But the number caused barely a blip in U.S. stock futures, suggesting market participants viewed the data as a mere hiccup.

"Jobless claims may bounce around week to week as the recovery takes hold, but we expect they will start to decline more consistently as the economy gains momentum," writes Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics. "We expect the stellar March jobs report to be the first of many and look for a hiring boom in the spring and summer months."

Continuing claims , which are reported on a one-week lag, inched lower to 3.734 million, a smaller drop than expected.

Long-term unemployed was a cloud over Friday's otherwise sunny jobs data, with those out of work 27 weeks or more accounting for 43.4% of total unemployed, up from 41.5% in February.

A tech-led rally is pushing the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 higher in late-morning trading, but financials

, industrials and energy are helping to keep the blue-chip Dow slightly in the red.

(Stephen Culp)

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S&P 500 RISES EARLY WITH TECH (1005 EDT/1405 GMT)

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are up in early trading Thursday, with technology leading S&P 500 sector gains.

Tech and other growth-related shares have been bouncing back after their recent underperformance tied to valuation concerns as Treasury yields rose. Of note, after hitting a high of 1.7760% on March 30, the U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield is down to about 1.64% today.

On Wednesday, minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting that bolstered the view interest rates will remain low for some time.

Energy is leading sector declines.

Here is the early U.S. market snapshot:

(Caroline Valetkevitch)

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SMALL CAPS: STAR DIMMING (0900 EDT/1300 GMT)

The small-cap Russell 2000 has been a star performer off the March 2020 bottom. Indeed, the RUT rallied as much as 144% off its March 2020 intraday low into its March 2021 intraday high.

However, since peaking in relative strength on a monthly basis vs the large-cap Dow Jones Industrial Average in February, the RUT is now on pace for a second straight month of inferior gains vs the blue-chip average.

Meanwhile, by itself, the small-cap index may be on the cusp of a bigger problem:

Throughout February and March of this year, on a weekly basis, the RUT flirted with a log-scale channel resistance line on two separate occasions. In both instances, the index essentially failed at this line, and suffered sell offs of 10%-11% over a span of just 1 to 3 weeks.

Despite the most recent period of claw back, the RUT remains about 6% below its March peak (2,360), and the channel line, which now resides around 2,368.

Meanwhile, in a testament to how extended to the upside the RUT had become, with its weekly closing high on March 12, it ended 49.8% above its 200-week moving average $(WMA.AU)$. This was its greatest level of disparity vs this long-term moving average since October 1997, when it peaked 49.9% above it.

Although the RUT has deflated to some extent, it remains 40% above the rising 200-WMA, which is now around 1,587. Thus, there would appear to be substantial downside risk in the event the index retreats to meet this long-term average.

As stands, if the RUT's advance is to resume, the 2,360 high and channel line are now key levels on the upside.

(Terence Gabriel)

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FOR THURSDAY'S LIVE MARKET'S POSTS PRIOR TO 0900 EDT/1300 GMT - CLICK HERE:

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(Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)