US stocks mixed at open; Dow edges higher

As December trading get underway, major US equity indices witnessed a mixed opening on Thursday following a choppy trading session on Wednesday. 

A follow through rise in oil prices, after Wednesday's big up-surge on the back of OPEC deal to cut its production for the first time in eight years, continues to support investor sentiment. However, traders might remain on the sideline and refrain from making big bets going into this week's key event risk, the closely watched US monthly jobs report, which is traditionally know to trigger substantial volatility in global financial markets.

At the time of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 60-points to 19,185, while the broader S&P 500 index added around 3-points and rose back above 2,200 mark. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index opened with mild negative bias and lost over 5-points to 5,318.

On economic data front, US initial jobless claims rose by 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 268,000 for the week ended November 25 week. The reading was much higher-than 253K expected but remained close to multi-decade lows and continued reflecting the underlying strength in the US labor market. With not much disappointment from today's jobless claims data along with Wednesday strong report on private sector employment, investors now expect solid headline number from Friday's official report for the month of November.

Technical outlook

Carol Harmer, Founder at charmertradingacademy.com, notes, "The market is nervous....thus you are getting sellers scrabbling to cover if there is a sniff of a chance it will break upside..ground..."

"We lose 2193 and it will open up another chance for the sellers to gain control and they would be looking at this trading lower to 2183 then 2175 over the next 2 sessions....."