US stock market opens higher

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened higher on Thursday with a rise in crude oil prices.

The Dow added 18 points to begin trading at 21,550 points, and the S&P 500 rose two points to 2,445 points.

The Nasdaq increased 10 points to start the day at 6,272 points.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 0.5 percent to trade at $45.62 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $47.81 per barrel -- a 0.3 percent increase.

Producer Price Index increased 0.1 percent in June from the month before, the Labor Department said earlier. The expectation for the index was to remain unchanged.