US stocks tilt higher in early trading

US stock indices edged up in early trading on Thursday, after the release of upbeat economic data.

The US Department of Labor revealed today that the unemployment claims fell to 1.18 million during the past week.

This comes ahead of the monthly jobs report on Friday, which provide better insight on the state of the US labor market, amid expectations for further drop in the unemployment rate..

Coronavirus infections rose to 18.3 million confirmed cases globally, with a death toll of more than 700,000 victims.

As for stocks, Dow Jones rose 0.2% or 60 points to 27,261 as of 14:25 GMT, Nasdaq rose 0.1% or 20 points to 11,019, and S&P 500 rose 0.1% or 4 points to 3,332.