Worse than expected US weekly jobless numbers have outweighed more positive news to keep markets under pressure.
Wall Street is down around 15 points in early trading after the number of people filing for US unemployment benefits rose from 410,000 to 445,000 last week, compared with expectations of a slight fall to 405,000. The figures indicated that the US recovery is likely to be a bumpy one yet, something that a rise in producer prices - mainly due to food and energy costs - also showed. On the other hand the US trade gap narrowed as exports climbed to their highest level for two years.
Elsewhere, to no one's surprise, the Bank of England and European Central Bank kept interest rates on hold, while the Spanish and Italian bond auctions went relatively wel. Yields were up but not by as much as had been feared, calming some of the Euro Zone debt fears.
Overall the FTSE 100 is down 27.60 points at 6023.12, with Royal Dutch Shell A shares down 17p at £21.23 on vague talk its earnings could disappoint.
But very speculative bid talk lifted a couple of FTSE stocks, namely BP which rose 2.8p to 506.7p, and Marks & Spencer, 4.2p higher to 377.8p.
