Wall Street opens sharply higher boosted by strong risk appetite

Major equity indexes in the U.S. started the day decisively higher on Tuesday as the recovering Treasury bond yields allowed risk appetite to return to markets. With the CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street's fear gauge, erasing more than 6% on the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are both adding 0.9% on the day while the Nasdaq Composite is gaining more than 1%.

Today's data from the U.S. revealed that housing starts declined by less than expected in February and house prices increased by 0.6% in January to beat the analysts' estimate of 0.3% and helped the market sentiment improve in the session. 

Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, which are all in the positive territory in the early trade, energy is leading the rally boosted by rising crude oil prices and was last up 1.8% on the day. In the meantime, financials is rising 0.8% supported by the 0.8% recovery in the 10-year T-bond yield.