Off the wire
• Chinese diplomat says South China Sea tribunal has no jurisdiction  • Roundup: Pakistani envoy summoned to Bangladesh's foreign ministry in apparent tit-for-tat move  • Feature: British barge begins slow journey to China to mark academic links  • Next few days critical for Syrians stuck in humanitarian stalemate: UN  • Roundup: Brazil's Rousseff suspended as Senate backs impeachment trial  • Zimbabwe's revenue collection down by 9.75 pct in Q1    • Record number of people internally displaced in 2015: report  • Number of tourists in Macedonia up 16.7 pct in Q1  • China-Arab relations leap forward with large potential: Chinese FM  • Air pollution affects world's poorest cities the most: WHO  
You are here: 　 Home

U.S. stocks open higher on data, oil prices

Xinhua, May 12, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks opened higher on Thursday, as investors were cheered by extended gains in oil prices and the newly-released economic data.

Oil prices rallied Thursday to their highest levels of the year, as U.S. crude oil topped 47 U.S. dollars a barrel before the opening bell.

On the economic front, in the week ending May 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 294,000, an increase of 20,000 from the previous week' s unrevised level of 274,000, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday. This is the highest level for initial claims since February 28, 2015 when it was 310,000.

Meanwhile, investors also kept a close eye on some U.S. Federal Reserve voting members scheduled to speak later Thursday for clues on the future path of interest rate hike by the central bank.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 85.29 points, or 0.48 percent, to 17,796.41. The S&P 500 gained 9.33 points, or 0.45 percent, to 2,073.79. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 17.08 points, or 0.36 percent, to 4,777.77.

U.S. stocks pulled back Wednesday as Wall Street assessed a batch of disappointing corporate earnings reports. Endi