Stocks open higher, hope to end losiong streak

Stocks rose at the open Tuesday as Wall Street hopes to break the slow start to the new year. Investors are looking ahead to Federal Reserve minutes due Wednesday and a monthly jobs report on Friday.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.4% to 16,492 and the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 0.3% to 1,833. The Nasdaq composite index was up 0.4% to 4,130.

Wall Street started the week with losses. On Monday, the Dow dropped 0.3% to 16,425.10, the S&P 500 shed a similar amount to 1,826.77 and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.4% to 4,113.68.

The closely watched benchmark S&P 500 index has finished lower the first three days of 2014. The last time the stock market suffered a hat trick of losses to kick off a new year was back in 2005.

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Benchmark oil for February delivery was up 37 cents a barrel to $93.63 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 53 cents to close at $93.43 on Monday.

Stocks have started the new year in lackluster fashion — especially compared with how they closed out 2013 at record highs.

"What we've seen so far this year is most likely just a case of profit taking rather than anything else," said Craig Erlam, market analyst at Alpari. "That said, it has been accompanied by a number of disappointing economic releases, not just in the U.S., but also in other major economies."

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.6% to 15,814.37 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng benchmark added 0.1% to 22,712.78. China's Shanghai composite index rose 0.1% to 2,047.32.

European markets moved higher.