NEW YORK (AA) – The stock market opened higher on Thursday as oil prices began rising again and weekly initial jobless claims came below expectations.
The Dow Jones rose 23 points to start the day at 17,942 points. The S&P 500 was up 3 points to open at 2,103, while the NASDAQ gained 10 points to begin the day at 4,869.
At the opening bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was trading at $48.12 a barrel with a 1.5 percent increase, and international benchmark Brent crude was at $49.49 per barrel with a 1.4 percent gain.
Meanwhile, initial jobless claims in the U.S. were 254,000 last week, according to the Labor Department Thursday. The market expectation for the data was 270,000.
In addition, the U.S. private sector added 172,000 jobs during June, ADP Research Institute said Thursday, beating the market expectation of 159,000.
The markets will examine the U.S.' weekly crude oil inventories to be announced Thursday, and closely watch June non-farm payrolls Friday.