Список проголосовавших за комментарий " Midday Market Summary: Stocks Trade Flat at Midday<p>There's been some action at the micro level in the first half of Wednesday's session, but it hasn't translated to much macro movement as the major averages hover in the neighborhood of their unchanged marks. The S&P 500 trades flat while the Dow (-0.3%) and the Nasdaq (+0.3%) are nestled on opposite sides of the benchmark index.</p><p>The energy sector (+1.1%) leads its peers by a relatively wide margin this afternoon following the latest crude oil inventory report from the Energy Information Administration. The EIA reading showed a smaller than expected build of 0.9 million barrels (consensus +1.4 million), which awoke the bulls in the crude oil futures market. The energy component trades 2.0% higher at $49.33/bbl, after being up around 0.5% prior to the EIA report.</p><p>To a lesser degree, the consumer discretionary (+0.4%), health care (+0.2%), and consumer staples (+0.1%) sectors have also propped up the broader market. <strong>Vertex Pharmaceuticals</strong> (VRTX 110.21, +20.55) has had a lot to do with the health care sector's outperformance, spiking 23.1%, after reporting that an experimental cystic fibrosis drug improved lung function. VRTX's jump has also left the <strong>iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF</strong> (IBB 296.66, +4.65) higher by 1.6%.</p><p>On the other hand, the consumer discretionary and consumer staples groups have relied on retailers in today's session, evidenced by the 1.2% increase in the <strong>SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF</strong> (XRT 42.24, +0.51). Large-cap XRT components like <strong>Amazon</strong> (AMZN 870.07, +14.11) and <strong>Wal-Mart</strong> (WMT 70.79, +0.46) have done their part in advancing the industry group by adding 1.6% and 0.7%, respectively.</p><p>The largest sectors by weight, financials (-0.5%) and technology (-0.1%), have limited the impact of the aforementioned groups. The remaining sectors--industrials, materials, utilities, telecom services, and real estate--trade with financials and technology in the red, but their losses have been held in check.</p><p>In the Treasury market, U.S. sovereign debt trades modestly higher with the benchmark 10-yr yield three basis points lower at 2.39%. It's worth noting that Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said that he would like to see four rate hikes in 2017, which represents the most hawkish outlook that has been offered by a Fed official to date. However, the impact on the Treasury market was minimal as Mr. Rosengren doesn't have a vote on this year's FOMC.</p><p>On the data front, today's economic releases were limited to February Pending Home Sales and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:</p><ul><li>Pending Home Sales for February rose 5.5% while the Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 2.4%. Today's reading follows an unrevised 2.8% downtick in January.</li><li>The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 0.8% to follow last week's 2.7% downtick.</li></ul>"