US stocks up as oil shares climb

[NEW YORK] Wall Street stocks climbed in opening trade Tuesday as higher oil prices lifted petroleum-linked shares.

Dow member ExxonMobil advanced 0.7 per cent and midsized producers Apache and EOG Resources gained more than 1.0 per cent as the US oil benchmark contract rose above US$50 a barrel due in part to supply disruptions in Nigeria.

The US increases shadowed gains in European bourses after the Eurostat statistics agency modestly raised first-quarter growth to 0.6 per cent from the prior 0.5 per cent.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 17,980.50, up 0.3 per cent.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.2 per cent to 2,112.54, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added less than 0.1 per cent at 4,969.83.

AFP