By Greg Peel

The Dow fell 16 points or 0.1% while the S&P was steady at 1195 and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

If the Alcoa result is a proxy for the US September quarter earnings season in general, then we're in for a rough time. While beating revenue expectations, Alcoa's earnings per share came in at US15cps when US22cps was expected. The result was released immediately after the closing bell this morning, and Alcoa shares are down 5% in the after-market as I write.

But Alcoa's not a great proxy, and aluminium prices have fallen over 20% this year in the wake of the European turmoil. The result was still up on the same quarter last year but lower than in June. The good news is that management was upbeat about the direction of the aluminium price from here, and hence Alcoa's fortunes. Wall Street has been rather concerned about the probability of downbeat guidance accompanying results.

We will need to wait for the JP Morgan and Citigroup results later this week before we start getting our teeth into more broadly relevant results. In the meantime, the tiny nation of Slovakia has the world on the edge of its seat. Slovakia is the last of the seventeen eurozone members to take the EFSF bill to parliament, which could happen this morning, or tomorrow, or later this week. Not even Slovakia is immune to the sort of farcical games played in the likes of Washington or Canberra, so right now the minority parties are trying to leverage their required support with local demands. Ho hum.

No one expects Slovakia not to pass the bill in the end, and realistically markets have assumed the EFSF to be a given for over a week now. News came in yesterday that the EU summit planned for next Monday has now been postponed to October 23, which once upon a time would have elicited cries of "oh God not again". Dithering and delays is all we've had out of the eurozone all year. But this time the news was not poorly received, the excuse being it allows more time for Germany and France to finalise the details of the Plan To Save The World which it will present to EU finance ministers on the Friday ahead of the Sunday summit. The G20 meeting is scheduled for November 3 in Cannes.

After a very strong rally on Monday night, Wall Street was eerily quiet last night. Volume was low and movements comparatively very limited ahead of both Alcoa and Slovakia. It's now just a waiting game as we kick the can down to Cannes, albeit with plenty of US corporate results in between.

There was little movement in currencies last night, with the US dollar index up a tad to 77.59 and the Aussie off a tad to US$0.9972. Gold slipped US$12.80 to US$1666.10/oz.

Base metals were a little more jittery, reacting mostly to news the Slovakian vote could be held up. Copper fell 2.5% and dragged the complex down 1-3%. Striking customs officers at the Brent delivery point held up shipments from Kuwait last night and sent Brent crude up US$1.78 to US$110.73/bbl, shrugged off by West Texas which was only up US40c to US$85.81/bbl.

The real action was in the US bond market, which was closed for the holiday the day before. The ten-year yield played catch-up by jumping 8 basis points to 2.15%, while the Treasury's auction of three-years met with tepid demand ? not so surprising given Chubby Checker is selling the short end.

The SPI Overnight fell 6 points.

The S&P 500 is now sitting just under the important technical level of 1200, which apart from being a round number is the top of the recent trading range. Barring some shocking US earnings reports, and all else being equal, one presumes we might sit around here for a while now until Europe provides, we hope, the news we want to hear.

It's a big day for Australia today as the carbon tax bill goes to parliament and passes, according to expectation, without incident. There is no truth to the rumour Tony Abbott has had Sophie Mirabella taken out and shot. Aside from the Canberra sandpit, Westpac will release its monthly consumer confidence survey which is expected to show an increase given expectations the RBA will cut rates.