Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market didn't spend much time at all in negative territory following the open. It quickly got back on the right side of unchanged, paced initially by the mega-cap stocks exhibiting relative strength and then energized by the stronger-than-expected existing home sales report for February that was released at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Not only were existing home sales better than expected, but this report falls in the category of "hard data" that Fed Chair Powell spoke of yesterday as still being pretty solid. Market participants have likely keyed in on this data point as a basis for concluding the economy is not as worrisome as some of the soft survey data has suggested.

In any case, an S&P 500 that saw 5,632 at the opening low, is now north of 5,700 as the broad-based selling interest at the open has pivoted to broad-based buying interest.

All 11 S&P 500 sectors are in positive territory, led by communication services (+1.3%) and consumer discretionary (+1.1%).