The Dow Jones industrial average was up less than a point to 15,326 in the first 15 minutes of trading. The blue chip index has added more than 400 points since Monday and the index is up nearly 3.5 percent just this month. With the last three days of gains, the Dow has recovered the bulk of its losses in August, which was the worst month for the Dow since May 2012.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down two points, or 0.1 percent, to 1,687. The S&P has risen for the past seven days. The Nasdaq composite, which was down sharply Wednesday due to a big sell-off in Apple, fell four points, or 0.1 percent, to 3,721.

Traders continue to watch developments in Syria. Syrian President Bashar Assad said Thursday his government has agreed to surrender its chemical weapons in response to Russia's initiative, not because of the threat of an attack from the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov are set to sit down together to discuss details of the plan in Geneva later Thursday.