NEW YORK, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks opened slightly higher on Thursday, as Wall Street digested the European Central Bank's (ECB) latest decision to cut rate and buy bonds, and the latest development on U.S.-China trade scenario.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 57.64 points, or 0.21 percent, to 27,194.68. The S&P 500 increased 11.36 points, or 0.38 percent, to 3,012.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index rallied 46.41 points, or 0.57 percent, to 8,216.08.

The 30 blue-chip stocks in the Dow traded mixed around the opening bell, with shares of traditional trade bellwether 3M up over 0.5 percent.

Semiconductor companies, whose revenues primarily rely on trade with China, also extended mild gains, as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index edged higher by over 0.1 percent during early morning sessions, with shares of NVIDIA up around 1.3 percent.

Ten of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors traded higher around market opening, with the health care sector up over 1 percent, leading the winners.

The ECB decided to cut its main deposit rate by 10 basis points to -0.5 percent and unveiled a massive bond-buying program on Thursday to shore up the sagging euro zone economy.

Under the quantitative easing program, the bank will purchase 20 billion euros (about 21.9 billion U.S. dollars) worth of net asset per month.

China on Wednesday unveiled the first set of U.S. goods to be excluded from the first round of additional tariffs on U.S. products, which will help effectively deal with economic and trade frictions and ease enterprises' burdens, experts said.

The exemption, which covers two lists with 16 categories of goods, will be valid from Sept. 17, 2019 to Sept. 16, 2020. Enditem

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