Stocks Opened Higher, Oil Pushed Higher

U.S. stocks opened higher on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched closer to the psychologically important 20,000 level, as the market’s recent uptrend continued. The Dow lately advanced 101.15 points, or 0.51%, to 19,984.21. The S&P 500 gained 8.98 points, or 0.40%, to 2,271.51. The Nasdaq Composite added 27.03 points, or 0.50%, to 5,484.47.

Oil prices moved higher in light holiday-season trade on Tuesday ahead of a weekly supply update on crude stock inventories in the U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil for February delivery rose 12 cents, or 0.2%, to $53.17 a barrel. February Brent crude put on 28 cents, or 0.5%, to trade at $55.22 a barrel.

BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) .’s fiscal third-quarter earnings came in better-than-expected on its growing software and services business. Overall first-quarter revenue fell to $289 million from $548 million a year earlier. BlackBerry said it generated $160 million in software and services revenue, compared with $138 million in the previous quarter.

Darden Restaurants Inc. (DRI) the parent of Olive Garden restaurants, reported fiscal second-quarter earnings that rose to $79.5 million, or 64 cents a share, from $43.2 million, or 33 cents a share, in the same period a year ago.

Uber Technologies Inc. continued to grow sales but also continued to lose money in the third quarter. Uber boosted sales to $1.7 billion in the quarter, from $1.1 billion in the second quarter but lost at least $800 million in this year’s third quarter.