US STOCKS-Mobile payment companies rally again

By Ryan Vlastelica

NEW YORK, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Companies in the mobile payment space soared on Friday, rallying on massive volume in their second major daily surge this week.

Net Element Inc (NasdaqCM: NETE - news) was the biggest percentage gainer on the Nasdaq, up 60 percent to $5.08 on volume of about 12 million shares, well beyond its 50-day average of about 675,000 shares. On Track Innovations Inc jumped 12.5 percent to $3.70, also on heavier-than-usual volume, while USA Technologies (NasdaqGM: USAT - news) added 4 percent to $2.17.

The sector, which is mostly comprised of small companies with market caps below $100 million, had also jumped on Wednesday, after Apple Inc (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) announced Apple Pay - a wireless payment system that will launch next month. Net Element has more than tripled this week alone.

EBay Inc (Xetra: 916529 - news) , which counts PayPal as a wholly-owned subsidiary, rose 1.7 percent. The stock jumped as much as 4.7 percent on Friday on market speculation that Google Inc (Xetra: A0B7FY - news) was preparing to buy a stake in the company, rumors that eBay dismissed, cutting the stock's gain.

Index snapshot at 13:55 EDT:

* S&P 500 was falling 13.45 points, or 0.67 percent.

* Nasdaq Comp was losing 26.86 points, or 0.58 percent.

* Dow industrials was dropping 87.97 points, or 0.52 percent.

* Russell 2000 was falling 13.16 points, or 1.12 percent.

* S&P MidCap was dropping 14.17 points, or 0.99 percent.

* S&P SmallCap was losing 8.17 points, or 1.22 percent. (Editing by Nick Zieminski)