Stock market today
Key indices on the New York Stock Exchange rose by 0.3-0.5 percent at the beginning of Thursday's trading session, showing positive dynamics for the second time in a week amid the situation around Ukraine.
According to data posted on the trading site's website, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.52 per cent in the first minutes of trading. The S&P 500 index rose 0.40%. The Nasdaq electronic exchange index was up 0.30%.
The price of WTI crude futures on Thursday morning fell for the first time in a week, to $109.38 a barrel.
OPEC and its allies, including Russia, decided to maintain a 400,000 bpd production increase in March, despite rising prices and ignoring consumer calls to increase oil output.
On the stock side, Kroger shares rose after reporting better-than-expected earnings as well as an increase in the outlook.
Automakers remain in the spotlight after Ford Motor Company said it was accelerating its transformation into an electric car company and split its electric car and internal combustion engine operations to deal directly with Tesla.
Best Buy also posted better-than-expected results and a better-than-expected outlook for the stock.
Also expected today are reports from Best Buy, Big Lots, Broadcom, Costco Wholesale, OFS Capital, Sotherly Hotels, Ooma, Veritone, VolitionRX and more. You can see the full list of companies here.
It's worth noting that the big report of the month will come out on Friday when the government releases its February employment report.
The Commerce Department will also release data on manufacturing orders for January. Watch for an increase of 0.7%, reversing the 0.4% fall in December.
Bitcoin is trading at $42,602.