US open: Stocks rise after Thanksgiving as Black Friday gets underway

US stocks were in the green as markets reopened for a half day following the Thanksgiving break on Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 0.31% to 19,142.35 points, the S&P 500 leapt 0.23% to 2,209.79 points, and the Nasdaq rose 0.15% to 5,3388.72 points at 1504 GMT.

Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, said: “Weighed down by turkey, US investors couldn’t really bring much to the table this Friday, bar another smashed ceiling for the Dow Jones.

“The Dow now sits just under 19,150, a fresh record high that marks a 1,200 point rise since the day the election results were announced. In, and of itself, that is astonishing, the fact it comes following the biggest political shock in decades and before a near certain rate hike from the Federal Reserve is something else entirely. “

In commodity markets, gold on Comex declined by 0.29% to $1,185.90 per troy ounce at 1457 GMT.

Oil prices were on the back foot as uncertainty grows in the run-up to the 30 November OPEC meeting where the cartel is expected to agree on a production cut.

Brent crude was down 1.38% to $48.33 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate fell 1.28% to $47.40 at 1445 GMT.

In currency markets, the dollar slipped 0.33% against the yen to 112.96 and 0.5% against the euro to 0.9428, but climbed 0.16% against sterling to 0.8044.

On the data front, October wholesale inventories were estimated at an end-of-month seasonally adjusted level of $586.9bn, which was down 0.4% from September and fell 0.5% from October 2015. Analysts had expected a 0.3% rise.

Markit’s services purchasing managers’ index slipped to 54.7 in November from 54.8 October. A reading above 50 indicates an expansion.

As Black Friday got underway, shares in Amazon, Alibaba and Walmart jumped as half of sales are expected to occur online.

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson edged higher following a report that it has made a takeover bid for Swiss drug maker Actelion.