NEW YORK (AFP) - Wall Street stocks opened higher Thursday as the market weighed the downside of a strengthening US dollar following the Federal Reserve's decision to hike interest rates.

The Fed's decision Wednesday to lift interest rates and the forecast for three rate increases in 2017 instead of two, pushed the US currency to multi-year highs against the euro and other leading currencies.

A stronger greenback can harm US exporters and translates into lower prices for dollar-based commodities, but also means lower prices for imports.

Early gains Thursday suggested the market may shrug off that worry amid the optimism over US growth after the elections.

Five minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 19,854.74, up 0.3 per cent.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.2 per cent to 2,258.10, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.3 percent to 5,450.46.