US stock market opens lower

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened lower Friday with a decline in oil prices and personal spending coming lower than expectations.

The Dow fell 43 points to 20,684 points and the S&P 500 lost 4 points to reach 2,363.

The Nasdaq decreased 10 points to begin the last trading day of March at 5,903.

Personal spending in February rose by 0.1 percent compared with the previous month, according to the Department of Commerce. The market expectation was a 0.2 percent increase.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was trading at $50.18 per barrel with a 0.3 percent decline. International benchmark Brent crude was at $53.02 a barrel -- a 0.2 percent loss.