After spinning its wheels all of yesterday the UK market looks set to open with the brakes on today.
Spread betting firms indicate the FTSE 100 will open 2 or 3 points or so up from last night's close of 6,821, though the bulls will be taking heart from firm showings overnight from the main US and Asian benchmarks.
In the US, the Dow Jones index was up 0.1% at 16.543, the S&P 500 was up 0.2% at 1,892 and the NASDAQ Composite was up 0.6% at 4,154.
Investors Stateside will be keeping an eye on new home sales data for April.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 is having a good day, up 0.9% at 14.467, while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng index is up 0.2% at 22,991.
There was a phlegmatic reaction to the military coup in Thailand, with the country's benchmark SET index down 1.5% at 1,384.
In the UK, the corporate agenda is looking light as we head into the long weekend. Updates are expected from diversified engineering group Smiths (LON:SMIN), finance house Close Brothers (LON:CBG) and property firm Quintain (LON:QED).