US stocks trying to recover with OPEC+ meeting on focus

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - The US stock market opened higher on Thursday trying to recover losses from the previous session as investors focused on a meeting between OPEC and its allies.

The Dow Jones rose 134 points to 31,404 at 9.35 a.m. EDT (1435GMT) after the blue chip index fell 0.4% on Wednesday.

While the S&P 500 was up 14 to 3,834, the Nasdaq gained 54 to 13,052. Each of the indexes were up 0.4% at the opening bell after falling 1.3% and 2.7%, respectively, during the previous session.

The VIX volatility index, also known as the fear index, was down 2.8% to 25.91 as the risk appetite has increased.

Investors, however, are more focused on the OPEC meeting that began Thursday in Austria.

OPEC and its allies, dubbed OPEC+ group, will decide later Thursday whether to ease production cuts in the face of rising oil prices.

The price of Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate were up around 1.2% each, trading at $64.82 and $61.87, respectively.

While Bitcoin erased most of its gains seen in the previous session by falling near 4% to below the critical threshold of $50,000, other cryptocurrencies were also largely on the decline.