US stock market opens flat to begin new month

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened flat Monday as the indexes are looking for direction at the first day of trading in the new month.

The Dow Jones was up only 11 points to begin the day at 18,443 and the S&P 500 was flat after less than a one point gain to 2,174. The Nasdaq was up five points to 5,167.

While Wall Street seems to have shaken off worries over the possibility that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the next few months, optimism in the market has been brought down with low oil prices.

The Fed kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged last Wednesday, but the new wording in its July statement raised concerns that the central bank could make a rate hike this September or December.

While the market seems to have overcome this, it has been struggling with low crude oil prices.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was down 2 percent to $40.77, and international benchmark Brent crude was at $42.76, a 1.8 percent decline.