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U.S. stocks open higher on Fed minutes

Xinhua, April 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks opened higher on Thursday as investors digested dovish minutes of the Federal Reserve's March policy meeting release on the previous day.

Fed policymakers had big divergences on the first rate hike. Several Fed officials thought that the U.S. central bank would be able to raise interest rates in June, and the others thought a rate hike wouldn't be warranted until later in the year.

Markets traded choppily on Wednesday after the release of minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

On economic front, in the week ending April 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 281,000, an increase of 14,000 from the previous week's revised level, according to U.S. Labor Department Thursday.

In corporate news, Alcoa unofficially kicked off the first-quarter reporting season Wednesday after the closing bell. The aluminum company swung to a profit but its revenues missed analysts' expectations. Its shares dropped 3.80 percent in the early trading.

Analysts believed that the overall earnings for the first quarter of 2015 would be hurt by the stronger dollar and lower oil prices.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 56.01 points, or 0.31 percent, to 17,958.52. The S&P 500 rose 5.73 points, or 0.28 percent, to 2,087.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 19.13 points, or 0.39 percent, to 4,969.95. Endi