Wall Street shares were mixed at the open after US earnings season start failed to light the touch paper on sentiment.
At the time of writing, the benchmark Dow was up 13 at 17,569 after futures trading had it down ten.
The broader S&P500 was down a fraction - 0.28 - to stand at 2,041, while the tech heavy Nasdaq index was down 18 points to stand at 4,814.
In other markets, the S&PMidcap400 eased 0.03% to 1,424, while the S&PMidcap600 shed 0.10% to stand at 670.64.
In London, the FTSE100 is down 6.3 points at 6,193, alongside other European indices. US crude is up 0.67% to stand at US$40.64 a barrel.
Earnings season got underway without much fanfare last night as aluminium giant reported a 15% drop in revenue. Alcoa (NYSE:AA) also had a drastic slump in first-quarter profit as depressed commodity prices took their toll on the firm.
The aluminium group saw first quarter earnings drop 92% to US$16mln, or break even per share, down from US$195mln, or 14 cents a share, a year earlier.