US stock market opens higher

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - The U.S. stock market opened higher Friday with a rise in crude oil prices.

The Dow added 42 points to begin the day at 20,705 points and the S&P 500 rose by 6 points to 2,372 points.

The Nasdaq increased 24 points to open the last trading day of the week at 6,079 points.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was trading at $50.01 a barrel, international benchmark Brent crude was at $53.27 per barrel -- both with a 1.6 percent gain.