U.S. stocks climbed Thursday as oil prices dropped. "The market is playing an oil game, and if oil keeps going down a dollar a day, the market likes it," Daniel Schaub, director of Nasdaq trading at A.G. Edwards Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri, told the Bloomberg financial news service. Crude oil for December delivery shed 1.54 dollars, or 2.9 per cent, to trade at 50.92 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the lowest closing since October 4 after prices had been as high as 55.67 dollars a barrel in late October. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 2.51 points, or 0.03 per cent, to end at 10,004.54. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 2.04 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 1,127.44 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose 5.75 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 1,975.74. On currency markets, the dollar traded at 78.502 euro cents, down from Wednesday's 78.703 euro cents. The dollar fetched 106.28 yen, down from 106.44 yen. Gold fell 4.05 dollars to close at 424.20 per fine ounce. SPA -- 0051 Local Time 2151 GMT
