Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages have sunk to session lows at midday, with today's losses considerably narrowing their early year-to-date gains. 

Amid the pullback in mega-cap and tech names, the defensive consumer staples (+0.8%), utilities (+0.6%), and health care (+0.3%) sectors are posting nice gains today. 

The consumer staples sector is now the best-performing S&P 500 sector this week with a 3.4% gain. Though Walmart (WMT 119.51, -0.85, -0.71%) gives back a chunk of this week's strength, a majority of the sector's components trade higher, with particualr strength across food and beverage names.