Stocks closed mostly higher yesterday with moderate gains.

While rising Treasury yields the other day were cited as being partly responsible for Tuesday's decline in equities, yesterday's falling yields, in turn, helped lift stocks on Wednesday.

News that the Treasury Department would increase buybacks on long-term debt, improved liquidity and thus reduced yields -- an important development as the U.S. debt is now at $40 trillion and requires a huge amount of Treasuries to finance it.

The move helped reverse a multi-day selloff in bonds.

In other news, reports that Moderna's personalized mRNA cancer therapy (developed with Merck) cut melanoma recurrence in a late-stage trial sent Moderna shares up 177%, and Merck up 12.6%. That served to lift healthcare stocks, especially biotech and pharma names. Healthcare is roughly 9% of the S&P and provided the biggest sector-level boost yesterday.

Positive earnings news from retail yesterday also buoyed stocks.

Before the open, Target posted a positive EPS surprise of 6.96%, and a positive sales surprise of 1.57%. That translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 20% vs. this time last year, and a sales growth of 5.28%. They were up 4.28% yesterday.

Estee Lauder also crushed with a positive EPS surprise of 21.88%, and a positive sales surprise of 2.15%. That equated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 333%, and a sales growth of 6.45%. They soared by 16.30% yesterday.

Today we'll hear from another 103 companies on deck to report, including Walmart, Deer and NetEase to name a few.

On the economic report front yesterday, MBA Mortgage Applications slipped -0.4% w/w, with Purchases off -2.0%, and Refi's up 1.5%.

And the Atlanta Fed Business Inflation Expectations remained unchanged at 2.2% y/y, in line with last month's pace.

We also got the FOMC Minutes from last month's Fed meeting. But there were no real surprises. Three members pushed for rate hikes vs. the nine who voted to keep rates unchanged. However, sentiment was a bit more hawkish in that "several participants favored an increase," even though only 3 dissented. Nonetheless, expectations were a bit hawkish going into it, so not really new.

The Minutes also noted that members were wary that the Middle East turmoil could prolong supply chain disruptions.

And the Minutes also revealed that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh floated a structural change for fewer meetings per year (6) vs. the current 8.

All in all, nothing really new. And the market took it all in stride.

Today we'll get Weekly Jobless Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index, and the Leading Indicators Report.

And, of course, the market will be listening for any new news out of the Middle East.

See you tomorrow,