US stock market opens lower

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened lower Thursday as oil prices continued to decrease.

The Dow fell eight points to begin the day at 20,847 and the S&P 500 was down less than a point at 2,362.

The Nasdaq lost four points to start trading at 5,833.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at $49.77 a barrel -- a 1 percent decline -- while international benchmark Brent crude was at $52.60 per barrel -- a 0.9 percent decline.

Oil prices declined more than 5 percent Wednesday with a rise in value of the American dollar and the U.S. crude oil inventories extending their gains for the ninth consecutive week.