Stocks open higher after employment readings; rising oil stirs concerns

NEW YORK -- Stocks opened higher Thursday after a private employment reading showed a rise in jobs for December, easing some concerns about the economy a day before the Labor Department's key reading on employment.

The report from an arm of payroll company Automatic Data Processing showed the economy added 40,000 private sector jobs last month, which was above the 30,000 forecast of economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires.

In addition, the number of newly laid off workers seeing unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, the Labor Department said. However, investors generally don't put too weight into the volatile weekly readings, the latest of which reflected unusual factors related to the Christmas holiday.

In the first minutes of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 29.92, or 0.23 percent, to 13,073.88.

Broader stock indicators also rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 4.71, or 0.33 percent, to 1,451.87, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 5.57, or 0.21 percent, to 2,615.20.