Tech bounce lifts US stocks ahead of Yellen speech

Technology shares bounced early Tuesday, lifting the broader market after the prior session's pullback as investors looked ahead to an address by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

Shares of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft were among the early gainers after falling sharply in the prior session in a move partly blamed partly on profit taking and partly on rising tensions with North Korea.

"Traders' attention this morning isn't focused on the geopolitical environment so much as it is focused on the behavior of the technology stocks." said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare. "Will they bounce back from recent selling activity?"

About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 22,357.82, up 0.3 percent.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 2,502.65, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.4 percent to 6,398.81.

Yellen was due to appear at the National Association of Business Economists conference in Cleveland, but analysts were not expecting major news after the Fed's policy statement and press conference last week.

Equifax dropped 1.1 percent after announcing that chief executive and chairman Richard Smith would step down in the wake of a massive data hack.

The company tapped longtime Equifax executive Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr. as interim chief executive while it undertakes a search for a new leader.