* Sees "huge" IT upgrade cycle driving sector gains
* Asset allocators to revisit U.S. heavyweights
* U.S. earnings season good so far with "no major accidents"
By Simon Jessop
LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) - U.S. tech stocks are set for a multi-year bull run as the country enters a "huge" upgrade cycle for IT and communications infrastructure, a Scottish Widows Investment Partnership fund manager said.
Nick Ford said his 22.6 million pound ($36.9 million) SWIP North American Fund is around 8 percent overweight on the sector relative to its benchmark, the Standard & Poor's 500, and he sees no reason to change, especially after bumper results from sector heavyweight Intel.
"The last time people were this excited about technology was 10 years ago in the dot-com boom," said Ford, citing 10 years of underinvestment in spite of the many new products, such as Apple Inc's iPad, which are "sapping up bandwidth demand".
"The whole internet and communications infrastructure in the U.S. needs to be retooled -- that's tremendously positive for the U.S. IT sector, which plays directly into this. Intel's results were testament to this."
Overnight, leading global chipmaker Intel reported forecast-beating quarterly sales figures, buoying peers around the globe.
"We think we're in a multi-year bull market for technology, which is very important for the U.S. market as a whole," Ford said, citing the need for global asset allocators to increase their weighting to the U.S. tech sector.
"There are too many powerful companies that are going to be making a lot of money over the next few years in this space. That leaves us extremley bullish on the U.S. and the market generally."
The tech sector accounts for roughly 20 percent of the S&P 500, said Ford, "so it's a big slug of positive power giving the U.S. a bit of a jump start".
The fund was hit particularly hard last month due to sector rotation out of tech stocks, but has returned 14.65 percent over the last six months, against a 15.3 percent return for the S&P 500, Lipper data show.
"I think you're going to see a lot of that technology underperformance reverse over the next few months," said Ford.
The Intel results had given the broader market "a huge shot in the arm" as the quarterly earnings season gathers pace, said Ford, while other results had also been good.
"One or two of the banks were uninspiring, but they're more of a lagging indicator. But there were some good numbers out of some of the consumer discretionary names and so far no major accidents."
Cheap stock valuations meant there was plenty of scope for money to come out of bonds and into equities, although there was "still a lot of scepticism" because of macroeconomic concerns such as the "messed up" housing market, Ford said. (Reporting by Simon Jessop; editing by Mark Potter)