U.S. stocks open higher after treasury secretary's remarks

U.S. stocks opened higher Thursday with the Dow and S&P 500 hitting record highs, as investors cheered on the comments of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC earlier on Thursday that he wants to see a "very significant" tax reform passed before the Congress' August recess.

"We want to get this done by the August recess. We've been working closely with the leadership in the House and the Senate and we're looking at a combined plan," he said.

U.S. equities have posted sharp gains since Trump won the presidential election last November, as investors bet that he would pursue massive corporate tax cuts, deregulation and infrastructure spending.

Meanwhile, Wall Street still digested the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest meeting.

The Federal Reserve officials expressed their confidence in the economy, saying the next interest rate hike would be "fairly soon," as shown in the minutes of the agency's latest monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

"Many participants expressed the view that it might be appropriate to raise the federal funds rate again fairly soon if incoming information on the labor market and inflation was in line with or stronger than their current expectations or if the risks of overshooting the Committee's maximum employment and inflation objectives increased," read the minutes.

On the economic front, in the week ending Feb. 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 244,000, an increase of 6,000 from the revised level of the previous week, said the U.S. Labor Department on Thursday.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 41.64 points, or 0.20 percent, to 20,817.24. The S&P 500 rose 4.89 points, or 0.21 percent, to 2,367.71. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 1.83 points, or 0.03 percent, to 5,862.45. Endi