US stock market opens higher as volatility declines

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Major indexes in the US stock market opened higher on Friday as the decline in volatility has increased investors' risk appetite.

The Dow Jones was up 270 points, or 0.8%, to 34,354 at 9.49 a.m. EDT (1349GMT) with investment banking firms Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan adding more than 1% each.

The S&P 500 increased 22 points, or 0.5%, to 4,182 with Tesla rising 0.5%. The Nasdaq was up 33 points, or 0.2%, to 13,568 with Uber increasing 1.2%.

The rise in the indexes came as the VIX volatility index was down 2.7% to 20.11 level, which increased investors' appetite for riskier assets.

After posting a major decline earlier in the week, Bitcoin was trading above $41,000 at the time, while some altcoins soared around 15%.

As investors have slowly moved away from safe bets, such as precious metals, gold was at $1,877 per ounce, while silver was $27.7 at the time.

Investors, however, were still showing some interest in liquidity. US dollar index that shows the strength of the greenback against a basket of six other major currencies was up 0.2% to 89.96. Euro was down against the dollar 0.4%.