US stock market opens higher with oil rise, jobs gain

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened higher Wednesday with the rise in oil prices and with jobs gain in March exceeding expectations.

The Dow added 83 points to begin the day at 20,772 and the S&P 500 rose seven points to 2,367 points.

The Nasdaq increased 13 points to start trading at 5,911 points.

The American private sector added 263,000 jobs in March, according to the ADP National Employment Report released earlier Wednesday, a significant rise compared to the market expectation, which forecast 185,000 job additions.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was trading at $51.70 per barrel with a 1.4 percent gain, and international benchmark Brent crude was at $54.88 with a 1.3 percent increase.

The global oil market will focus on weekly changes in crude oil and gasoline inventories in the U.S., which will be announced later Wednesday by the U.S.' Energy Information Administration.