Rising crude oil prices lifted the markets to a higher open with the Dow gaining 38 points to 23,995. Nasdaq added 4 points to 7170.

On the upside

Cemex (NYSE: CX) settled a lawsuit filed by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance that claimed that Cemex discharged polluted stormwater runoff into the Sacramento River.

Rising gold prices lifted shares of Alamo Gold (NYSE: AGI), AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU) and Kinross Gold (NYSE: KSS).

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) withdrew from an auction to buy the consumer health business of Pfizer (NYSE: PFE).

On the downside

Profit taking weighed down shares of Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC).

Forest City Realty Trust (NYSE: FCEA) will not sell itself and has reshuffled its board.

Goldman Sachs removed Nutanix (Nasdaq: NTNX) from its Conviction Buy list.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of 6 to 5 on the NYSE while decliners edged out advancers by 6 to 5 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 added 3 points to 2,646. Bitcoin slipped $6 to $8,602.