The market is down 56, not even close to the 11 point gain the SFE Futures suggested this morning. It was down 13 at its best and down 51 at its worst.

Dow Jones flat, up 1.22. It was down 56 at its worst and up 37 at its best. Investors were tentative given the mixed bag of 1Q reports. Brokers and investment banks were up 3% and financials overall up 1.4%, outperforming the other sectors. Earnings results dominated the headlines, Google's 1Q profits top expectations, allaying fears over conversion of its web servers to advertising viewers, Merrills announced $6.5bn in write downs and posts earnings 21c per share below consensus estimate and Pfizer posted a profit below expectations. In economics news, Philadelphiaregional manufacturing activity fell to another 8 points from -17.4 to -24.9.

Bad news for the economy. Economists expected it to be at -15, Unemployment claims for last week were not as bad as expected and the Conference Board's leading economic indicators report for March was up 0.1% in line with expectations from a fall of 0.3% in February.

Both BHP and RIO down in ADR form overnight, 2.05% and 1.98% respectively. BHP taking a breather - down 48c to 4291c after a couple days of gains.

Metals all down overnight – Nickel down 1.9%, Zinc down 1.5% and Copper 1.3%. Aluminium down 0.3%. Zinifex down 13c to 1036c. It gives a talk today and will presumably talk up the merits of the Oxiana bid. Oxiana has its AGM today and will do the same. After a pretty poor run since the merger was announced both offer the opportunity for price enhancing rhetoric. OXR down 5c to 340c.

Oil price unchanged at $114.80 – A government report yesterday showed oil inventories had dropped higher-than-expected last week. Woodside down 2.6% to 5773c after releasing some shabby looking production numbers yesterday. Gold down $5.40 to $942.90. Newcrest down 94c to 3350c. US Bonds down with the 10 year yield up to 3.72%.