US stocks pared early losses to end mildly higher as investors meditated on the volatility in oil prices and remarks from the European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 48.89 points, or 0.27 percent, to 17,838.56 on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.
The S&P 500 increased 5.93 points, or 0.28 percent, to 2,105.26. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 19.11 points, or 0.39 percent, to 4,971.36.
Oil prices initially tumbled in the early trading on Thursday as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ended a meeting without setting a ceiling for its production, but then reversed losses to settle mildly higher after official data showed that US crude stockpiles fell 1.4 million barrels in the last week.
"Based on our regular economic and monetary analyses, we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged," Draghi told a press conference after a monthly Governing Council meeting of ECB in Vienna.
--IANS
pgh/
