us stock indexes advanced in midday trade on wednesday helped by a rally in technology stocks and easing concerns about stress in the banking sector on tuesday the dow jones industrial average fell 38 points or 012 to 32394 the sp 500 declined 6 points or 016 to 3971 and the nasdaq composite dropped 53 points or 045 to 11716 appetite for risk was evident on wednesday as investors were more relaxed about the health of the bank sector and the prospects for the path of interest rates semiconductor and megacap technology stocks contributed largely to the advances the sp 500 information technology sector gained 15 while the consumer discretionary sector jumped 12 shares of micron technology inc mu gaining 63 on wednesday after the company reported its largest quarterly loss on record due to an inventory writedown of more than 14 billion on tuesday but its shares held up as executives suggested the memory market may be reaching a bottom german microchip maker infineon technologies shares also went up nearly 7 as it upgraded its 2023 view citing resilient business dynamics in its core automotive and industrial segments it suggests that perhaps were still seeing businesses willing to spend on on technology and other productivity tools said tom hainlin global investment strategist at us bank wealth management strength in chinafocused technology stocks was also helping the mood after traders took news of entrepreneur jack mas reemergence and alibabas 9988hkrestructuring as a sign of beijing easing its crackdown on the sector see international stocks outperform decouple from us equities by unusual degree we are in the middle of what we call a market chop phase and we frame it by roughly in terms of prices of the sp 500 at between 3800 and 4200 and were right in the middle of there we see volatility in between those two prices hainlin said in a call as we get into april and you start to get first quarter earnings results from companies that will give us some clues perhaps as to the direction of markets coming out of this chop area according to hainlin well start to see if companies change their outlooks for the for the year if theyre still spending on technology and productivity and what theyre seeing in terms of consumer demand seetech stocks back as a safehaven trade after sell off in bank sector but for how long  the 2year treasury yield  which is particularly sensitive to monetary policy was trading around 406 on wednesday it was above 5 three weeks ago but plunged below 36 last friday when the market feared banking sector turmoil would hit economic activity and encourage the federal reserve to trim interest rates more quickly that previously thought while fed could respond by cutting policy rates with inflation still elevated an aggressive fed response may be delayed said seema shah chief global strategist at principal asset management even then by the time the fed pivots historically the damage is usually done and risk assets continue to struggle even as rates fall economic activity has been resilient and unemployment sits near historic lows so its possible markets could shrug off any additional turmoil during this hiking cycle the cboe vix index  a gauge of expected equity market volatility has dropped below its long run average of 20 a sign that traders are much calmer than of late tom lee head of research at fundstrat noted that vix futures were now back in contango a more normal structure where longerterm contracts are priced higher this normalization of spread is often a sign investors see the worst of the crisis behind said lee that is generally a constructive sign and is certainly counter to the general gloom of investors postsvb failure this ultimately becomes an important point if investors are gloomy and expect a financial crisis to follow but this doesnt happen this means sentiment and positioning will be key in many ways this could be the setup now lee added in us economic data pendinghome sales rose 08 in february up for the third month in a row according to the monthly index released wednesday by the national association of realtors nar pending home sales reflect transactions where the contract has been signed for an existinghome sale but the sale has not yet closed this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal