U.S. stocks open higher after retail sales data, with Dow climbing almost 200 points

U.S. stocks opened higher on Thursday, after a government report showed that retail sales last month were stronger than expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.96%
was up almost 200 points, or 0.5%, soon after the opening bell, while the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.84%
gained 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+0.81%
climbed 0.4%, according to FactSet data, at last check. Retail sales in the U.S. rose 0.6% in August, as consumers continued to spend, according to a report Thursday from the U.S. Census Bureau. That was stronger than the 0.1% gain forecast by economists polled by the Wall Street Journal.