US stocks opened higher Friday, on a shorter day of trading after the Thanksgiving holiday, when many retailers lower their prices to entice consumers to part with their hard-earned money.

Shortly after markets opened on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3 percent at 44,835.35, while the broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 6,012.94. 

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite also rose by 0.3 percent to 19,115.12, as chip makers rallied. 

Black Friday, as it is known, marks the unofficial start of the US holiday shopping season, and opens a long commerce-centered weekend that also includes "Small Business Saturday" and "Cyber Monday."

"I think the market is rallying on several factors," Peter Cardillo from Spartan Capital Securities told AFP. "Investors will be monitoring the Black Friday sales, that is the kickoff to the holiday season."

Cardillo added that markets would also be digesting a decline in the yield of the popular 10-year US Treasury note.  

Among individual firms, US chip companies rose in early trading, with AI chip titan Nvidia rising 1.0 percent, and Applied Materials, which supplies equipment and software for building semiconductors, was up 2.7 percent.