S&P 500 Index opens higher for third straight day

• Wall Street's main indexes continue to push higher on Friday.
• All major sectors of the S&P 500 trade in the positive territory.
• Rising crude oil prices provide a boost to energy stocks.

After registering impressive gains on Thursday, major equity indexes opened higher on Friday. As of writing, the S&P 500 was up 0.45% on the day at 4,457, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rising 0.65% at 35,141 and the Nasdaq Composite Index was gaining 0.3% at 14,864.

All major sectors of the S&P 500 trade in the positive territory as the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), Wall Street's fear gauge, is losing 2% at 16.5.

With the barrel of West Texas Intermediate rising nearly 1% and trading above $82, the Energy Index is up 1.1% in the early trade. In the meantime, the more-than-3% increase witnessed in the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond yield is supporting the Financials Index, which was last seen gaining 0.8%.

Earlier in the day, the data published by the US Census Bureau showed that Retail Sales rose by 0.7% on a monthly basis in September. This reading came in much better than the market expectation for a decrease of 0.2% and helped the mood remain upbeat ahead of the weekend.

S&P 500 chart (daily)