U.S. stocks open higher on retail sales

U.S. stocks opened higher on Thursday as Wall Street was cheered by a strong retail sales report.

U.S. Commerce Department announced Thursday that advance estimate of U.S. retail and food service sales for May were 444.9 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 1.2 percent from the previous month, and 2.7 percent above May 2014.

In the week ending June 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 279,000, slightly above expectations, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level, according to the U.S. Labor Department Thursday.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 63.63 points, or 0.35 percent, to 18,064.03. The S&P 500 was up 7.10 points, or 0.34 percent, to 2,112.30. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 18.11 points, or 0.36 percent, to 5,094.80.

U.S. stocks rebounded strongly Wednesday, with all the three major indices jumping over 1 percent, after reports emerged of soften stance of international creditors toward Greece, raising hopes of breaking the deadlock of debt talks.

Meanwhile, some analysts believed that Wednesday's bounce in the stock market was mostly technical as both the Dow and the Nasdaq just registered a four-day losing streak on Tuesday. Endi