US stock market opens higher with oil gains

NEW YORK (AA) – Wall Street opened with gains to begin the new week on a higher note with the increase in oil prices.

The Dow Jones rose 34 points to start Monday at 17,841 points. The S&P 500 was up 3 points to open at 2,102, while the Nasdaq gained 5 points to begin at 4,948.

Oil prices were up around 2 percent at the opening bell due to supply disruptions in Nigeria.

The American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 2.2 percent at $49.67 per barrel and the international benchmark Brent crude was trading at $50.59 a barrel with a 1.9 percent gain.

The market will focus on the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's speech, and will wait for a signal whether the Fed will make a rate hike this summer amid the weak job data that came last Friday.

Last Friday, the nonfarm payrolls in May only increased by 38,000 -- the lowest level since September 2010. The market expectation was for the economy to add 160,000 new jobs.