US stock market opens higher

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened higher Wednesday as the price of crude oil continued to increase.

The Dow Jones was up 65 points to begin the day at 18,233 and the S&P gained six points to start at 2,157. The Nasdaq added 15 points to open at 5,305.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 1.9 percent at $49.69 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude was trading at $51.78 with a 1.8 percent gain.

The oil market and investors will closely watch the change in the U.S.' weekly crude oil and gasoline inventories which will be announced by the Energy Information Administration later Wednesday.

A decline in weekly inventories could push oil prices higher, according to analysts.