NEW YORK — Wall Street showed a little resilience as investors got answers to some of their questions about banks.

The major indexes closed down about 1 percent yesterday but recovered from much steeper losses early in the day, continuing the volatile trading that has buffeted the market this week.

Stocks initially fell on growing pessimism about the banking industry and a home sales report that came in weaker than the market expected. But as the day wore on, some of the uncertainty about the troubled banking system lifted when the Treasury Department said it's beginning to "stress test" the banks. The test will use two economic scenarios to measure banks' health, and the process is expected to be done by the end of April.