Stocks Opened Higher as Techs Gained

U.S. stocks opened modestly higher on Wednesday, led by gains in Nvidia, Apple and Oracle, ahead of Fed minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately rose 64.00 points, or 0.26%, to 24,888.01. The S&P 500 gained 0.35 points, or 0.38%, to 2,706.16. The Nasdaq Composite added 42.01 points, or 0.60%, to 7,048.91.

Oil prices ticked up Wednesday morning on the back of ongoing antigovernment protests—met with a progovernment show of support—in Iran. February WTI crude added 20 cents, or 0.3%, to $60.57 a barrel. March Brent gained 21 cents, or 0.3%, to $66.78 a barrel.

Wall Street is awaiting further clues from central bankers, with minutes from the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting last month set to be released at 2 p.m.

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google both discounted their virtual assistant speakers so deeply over the holiday shopping season. both companies cut prices for the smallest version of their speakers, the Amazon Echo Dot and Google Home Mini, to as little as $29 from $50 for the U.S. holidays.

Dominion Energy Inc. will buy Scana Corp. for $7.9 billion in a stock-for-stock deal, scooping up a utility battered by a failed nuclear project that’s drawn scrutiny from federal and state regulators.