US Stock Markets Today: S&P 500 Opens 0.6% Higher As Wall Street Sustains Momentum

The three main US stock market indices opened higher on Thursday, a day after small-cap companies and financial sector stocks soared to help the Wall Street regain momentum.

The broader index, S&P 500, opened 0.6% higher at 5,875.62 points, whereas the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.9% to 18,537.21.

The 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average, which closed at a record high on Wednesday, opened fractionally higher by 0.1% at 43,119.81.

Among the 11 S&P 500 sectoral indices, four were trading higher, whereas seven slipped against the previous day's close. The gains were led by information technology and energy sectors, whereas telecom, healthcare and real estate were among the drags.

Chip stocks led the gains in early trade, with Nvidia Corp. rising 3.8% to $140 apiece on the Nasdaq. Lucid Group Inc. led the losses, as its shares plummeted 15% on the announcement that the electric vehicle maker will sell nearly 262.5 million shares.

The Bloomberg dollar spot index rose 0.2% as the US markets opened. The British pound was nearly flat at 1.300, whereas the Euro declined 0.36% to 1.082 against the greenback.

Bitcoin, which has faced a rally in recent period, witnessed a significant decline in its trading value on Thursday. The world's largest traded cryptocurrency was trading 1.2% lower at $66,807 at 10:10 a.m. (GMT-4).

In the commodities market, gold continued its upward march as investors look forward towards a likely rate cut in the US Federal Reserve meeting on Nov. 7. Spot gold was trading 0.6% higher at $2,690.12 an ounce.

Crude oil prices also edged higher, with Brent trading 0.4% up at $74.5 per barrel and the US West Texas Intermediate trading 0.62% higher at $70.83 a barrel.

Before the Wall Street opened, the Asian markets settled lower. China's Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shed more than 1%, Japan's Nikkei 225 declined 0.69%, and India's NSE Nifty 50 closed 0.89% lower.