US stock market opens higher

By Ovunc Kutlu

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

The Dow added 16 points to start the day at 21,656 points, and the S&P 500 rose 3 points to 2,476 points.

The Nasdaq climbed 11 points to begin trading at 6,396 points.

At the first bell, American benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 0.5 percent to trade at $47.72 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $50.16 a barrel -- a rise of 0.6 percent.