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Tesla to give customers one-month driver-assist trial;

shares up

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McCormick ( MKC ) jumps after Q1 profit, sales beat

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Trump Media & Technology surges on debut after SPAC merger

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Indexes up: Dow 0.22%, S&P 0.20%, Nasdaq 0.26%

(Updated at 2:05 a.m. ET/ 1805 GMT)

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) -

U.S. stocks rose modestly on Tuesday after a two-day slide,

led by some megacap growth stocks, as investors awaited economic

data in a holiday-shortened week to gauge the Federal Reserve's

policy path.

Tesla gained 3.66% after CEO Elon Musk unveiled the

electric-vehicle maker's one-month trial of its Full

Self-Driving technology to existing and new customers in the

United States. The stock is up nearly 5% for the week but

remains down nearly 28% for the year.

Other index boosters included heavyweights Alphabet

, up 0.99%, and Meta Platforms ( META ), which gained

0.43%.

The focus remains on a key reading of the Personal

Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), the Fed's preferred

inflation gauge. The data is due on Friday, when U.S. markets

will be shut for the Good Friday holiday.

The index is expected to have risen 0.4% in February and

2.5% annually. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and

energy components, is estimated to have been up 0.3% last month,

keeping the annual pace at 2.8%, economists polled by Reuters

said.

"The big number is Friday. That's the number everyone's

going to pay attention to and whatever happens in the meantime

is going to be noise, so I don't anticipate a whole lot

happening until we get that data point," said Stephen Massocca,

senior vice president at Wedbush Securities in San Francisco.

"The one thing that would be death, death for this

market is if somehow something came out that led people to

believe that the fed funds rate has not topped out yet. If for

some reason people thought the Fed was even giving an inkling to

raising rates further, stand out of the way."

On the economic front, orders for long-lasting U.S.

manufactured goods increased more than expected in February,

while business spending on equipment showed tentative signs of

recovery. In a separate report, the Conference Board said its

consumer confidence index was little changed at 104.7 in March.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 86.40

points, or 0.22%, to 39,400.00. The S&P 500 gained 10.25

points, or 0.20%, at 5,228.54 and the Nasdaq Composite

added 42.96 points, or 0.26%, to 16,427.65.

The three major U.S. indexes hit record highs last week

after the Fed maintained its projection for three interest-rate

cuts this year.

Markets have been slowly increasing expectations the central

bank will cut rates by at least 25 basis points in June,

currently pricing in a 70.4% chance, the CME's FedWatch Tool

showed, up from 59.2% last week.

Trump Media & Technology group surged 46.97% as it

kicked off its first day of trading after completing a reverse

merger with a blank check firm.

McCormick ( MKC ) added 9.68% as the best performer on the

S&P 500 after the spice maker beat market expectations

for first-quarter sales and profit.

Seagate Technology ( STX ) gained 9.07% after Morgan

Stanley upgraded the computer hard-drive maker's rating to

"overweight" from "equal-weight."

Trading volumes are expected to be light, and thin out

as the holiday approaches.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.3-to-1 ratio

on the NYSE and by a 1.07-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 30 new 52-week highs and one new low

while the Nasdaq recorded 105 new highs and 110 new lows.