Stocks are higher and crude oil is sliding (USO, WTI, OIL, VDE, BNO, MW, ZAR)

Stocks are slightly higher in early trading on Thursday morning, following closes in the red all week.

Near 9:55 a.m. ET, the Dow was up 33 points, the S&P 500 was up 3 points, and the Nasdaq was up 10 points.

Labor Department data showed that initial jobless claims rose more than expected last week, by 13,000 to 282,000.

That's about the only thing on the economic calendar today. Tomorrow is jam-packed though, with retail sales, producer prices, and consumer sentiment due in the morning.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures suddenly fell to as low as $36.59 per barrel after 8:00 a.m. in New York. Investing.comOil has been under pressure since last Friday, when the 12-member oil cartel OPEC raised its production target to 31.5 million barrels per day, and did not agree on a ceiling for member states. 

And this morning, OPEC's monthly oil market report showed that its output surged to a three-year high in November. 

On Wednesday, data from the Energy Information Administration showed that US oil inventories fell for the first time in ten weeks last week, by 3.6 million barrels. Analysts had expected a build by nearly 2 million barrels according to Investing.com.

Shares of Men's Wearhouse were down by as much as 21% pre-market after the company said yesterday that it's booking a $90.1 million charge for its failed investment in Jos. A. Bank. 

And, South Africa's rand is still getting punished following the sudden removal of the country's finance minister by President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday after local markets closed. The rand dropped to as low as 15.34 to the dollar, and the benchmark 10-year yield rose above 10% for the first time since 2008.  

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