The month of October has a bad reputation with traders for a reason. Thus, the main US equity benchmarks are now being called to open lower by well over a percentage point each.

That following a bevy of weak company results out Stateside last night and earlier today. Chief amongst these has been chemicals maker DuPont, after which industrial conglomerate 3M and Xerox have lowered their earnings per share guidance for the year.

Results out of Texas Instruments, United Technologies and Regions Financial have also come in below forecasts.

Not all bad news however, amongst the few exceptions out there today are Coach and Yahoo (shares of the latter rose 5% after the close of trading last night).

Also weighing on markets may be comments from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble regarding how his government will not back any aid for Greece which it might deem unsustainable.

Acting as a backdrop, the Federal Open Market Committee will today begin a two day policy meeting.

Front month West Texas crude futures are now falling by 1.94% to the 88.30 dollar per barrel level on NYMEX.

AB

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