The UK’s main index struggled to make headway by lunch as investors cautiously awaited announcements due later in the day.
First up is Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who is addressing congress in the US at 2pm GMT.
“Investors will be looking for firmer signs on whether an interest rate lift-off will occur in September, as well as details on the size of the USA’s second quarter recovery following its weak opening to 2015” Connor Campbell at Spreadex said.
Later on this evening, Greece prime minister Alexis Tsipras has the unenviable task of trying to push his latest funding deal with creditors through parliament.
Alastair McCaig at IG said: “Almost nothing has been straightforward in this Greek drama, but Mr Tsipras’ admission that he signed a text he doesn’t believe in is sure to rile locals fresh from a referendum that categorically voted against any such action.”
Investors across Europe were cautious ahead of the events, with the German Dax gaining a very moderate 16 points to 11,533 while the Paris-based Cac 40 inched 8 points ahead to 5,040.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 was equally as flat, eking out a 12 point gain with UK jobs data coming in more mixed than expected.
Wage growth was slightly lower than the forecast 5 year high of 3.3%, but was still at a healthy 3.2%.
Jobless claims, however, increased instead of falling, and the unemployment rate lifted away from its 7 year low to 5.6%.
On the corporate front, miners were higher today with Anglo American (LON:AAL) leading the way higher after an upbeat note from Credit Suisse.
The broker boosted its rating on the shares to 'outperform' from 'neutral', sending shares 2.9% higher at 894p.
Fresnillo (LON:FRES) gaining 2.3% to 692p and Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) up 2% to 2,629p rounded out the top three.
At the other end of the index, upmarket fashion house Burberry (LON:BRBY) reported higher first quarter revenue and sales but said Asia and Hong Kong dragged on the numbers. Shares eased 28p to 1,592p.
Moving away from the FTSE 100, JD Wetherspoon (LON:JDW) chairman Tim Martin used the company’s trading update to attack the governments new ‘living wage’ scheme.
The pub chain warned that annual profit was unlikely to top last year's, due to higher pub running costs. Shares dropped 7.5% to 713p.
Meanwhile, Lonmin (LON:LMI) was the beneficiary of an upgrade to ‘neutral’ from ‘sell’ by blue-chip broker Goldman Sachs. Shares climbed 8.5% to 83.9p.
In the world of small caps, Oilex (LON:OEX) raised the first A$1.8mln of a planned A$30mln funding for its exploration programme in India. Shares climbed almost 10% to 2.19p.
Meanwhile the biggest gainer of the day was Mosman Oil and Gas (LON:MSMN) up 41% to 2.8p.
There is no news out at the moment and typically internet bulletin boards saw speculation and naturally enough a spikey comment or two.
Leading fallers was Rurelec (LON:RUR) as the company said a US$12mln bridging loan has been suspended pending clarification on the security and repayment of the facility, if taken. Shares dropped 26% to 1.9p.