Welcome to Thursday’s Morning Coffee Break – market participants will need to navigate several market directional influences today. The S&P 500 index has gains for 3 straight sessions with today’s futures suggesting a positive open once again.

The Dow Jones (DIA)fair value is up by 55.39 to 13416.61, S&P 500 (SPY) fair value is up by 6.26 to 1444.84 and the NASDAQ (QQQ) fair value is coming in at 2818.84 up by 7.26 (as of 8:29 am)

Traders as well as investors will get their first opportunity to react to last night’s first debate between President Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney.  Last night’s debate was the first of three presidential debates.

Market participants will also get another look at the weekly Labor Department jobless claims report scheduled to be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. Analysts’ are looking for 369K claims for the week ending September 29.  The forecast is 10k increase from the previous week.

Then at mid-morning – 10 a.m. U.S. factory orders will be released – forecast are looking for 6% drop compare to July’s report.

At 2 p.m. ET market participants will get look inside the FOMC meeting  with the release of Federal Reserve’s minutes.  Traders will be looking for clues about the economic outlook and upcoming Fed policy.

Morning Coffee Break Global Markets Watch

Asia

Overnight Asian markets are broadly higher with Japan leading the charge on a lower Yen.  Japanese auto manufactures helped to send the NIKKIE higher with easier auto exporting due to the lower Yen.   Energy companies where the loser during the overnight session as crude oil continued fall after the U.S. session trader crude oil below $90.

China

China’s markets remain close for holiday.

Euro Zone

United Kingdom equities are trading in tight range today with oil/energy companies having a hard time finding firm footing as crude oil trades at $88.88 level ahead of the U.S. session. Banks on the other hand are catching a bid after the Bank of England (BOE) left key interest rate unchanged at record lows of 0.5% and kept asset purchase at 375 billion pounds or $604.3 billion USD.

BP PLC (BP, quote) put the most pressure on the U.K. index down over 1.48% on headlines from Reuters.  Reuters is reporting that BP Azerbaijan told Reuters that gas flow from Azeri Shah Deniz fields to Turkey have been stop on Wednesday night due to “an incident”.

Emerging Markets

Yesterday Poland's central bank announced it was leaving key lending rates unchanged at 4.75% bucking the analysts’ expectations for a rate cut. Analysts’ were expecting a quarter point cut to 4.5%.

This of course sent the Polish Zloty higher on the central bank’s announcement. The euro moved lower to 4.0857 against the Zloty. Ahead of the statement the Euro / Zloty traded as high as 4.11 Today the Poland central bank will hold a news conference on the decision.

There is no direct way for U.S. retail investors to trade the Zloty, however, readers can gain exposure to a basket of emerging currencies through the Wisdom Tree Dreyfus Emerging Currency Fund (CEW, quote).  Those looking for exposure to Poland itself can do so through Market Vectors Poland Fund (PLND, quote)

Morning Coffee Break Companies To Watch

Company Watch

Marriott (MAR, quote) reported better than excepted Q3 profits of $0.44 per share. Analysts were looking for $0.40 per share. Marriott’s guidance for the final quarter of 2012 of $0.52 - $0.56 per share falls which is down from the $0.57 analysts estimate.

Applied Materials (AMAT, quote) announced they will be cutting 6-9 percent of its workforce (900-1,300 jobs) by the end of its fiscal 2013’s third quarter.  The restructuring is reported to free up $190 million per year.

NuVasive (NUVA, quote) medical device maker cut Q3 revenue guidance. NuVasive cites competition from physician owned distributorships.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, quote) should remain under pressure with many analysts looking for the stock price to drop into the single digits after drop 13% in yesterday’s session.  The drop came on the heals’ of CEO Meg Whitman’s announcement that HP’s turnaround effort will take much longer than expected and there is lot wrong with HP.

Futures and Commodities Corner

Crude Oil

The energy markets have been on the move in the last few sessions with some notable moves lower. Energy traders will be focus on the Energy Department’s weekly report on natural gas inventories at 10:30 a.m. ET. In yesterday’s trading crude oil traded to a 2 month low.

Be sure to check out the Daily Energy Report for a compressive look at the global energy markets by Tom Pawlicki.

Equity only readers can gain exposure to WTI Crude Oil through the United States Oil Fund (USO, quote) ETF that seeks to reflect the performance, less expenses, of the spot price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) light, sweet crude oil. The USO will invest in futures contracts for WTI light, sweet crude oil, other types of crude oil, heating oil, gasoline, natural gas and other petroleum based-fuels that are traded on exchanges. It may also invest in other oil interests such as cash-settled options on oil futures contracts, forward contracts for oil, and OTC transactions that are based on the price of oil.

Equity only readers can gain exposure to natural gas through the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG, quote) ETF that seeks to replicate the performance, net of expenses, of natural gas. The trust will invest in futures contracts on natural gas traded on the NYMEX that is the near month contract to expire.

Gold

Gold prices traded between gains and losses and settled 0.1% higher on upbeat global market sentiment fostered by stronger economic data from the US economy Wednesday.  Gold is noticeably higher on the ECB and BOE announcements as money flows move the U.S. dollar into risk assets helping to put bid under the gold.

Equity only readers gain exposure to the gold through the SPDR Gold Shares Trust (GLD, quote) ETF that seeks to replicate the performance, net of expenses, of the price of gold bullion. The GLD trust holds gold, and is expected to issue baskets in exchange for deposits of gold, and to distribute gold in connection with redemption of baskets.

The Morning Coffee Break Bottom Line

Look to see how the U.S. markets react after the European markets close and the final hour of the U.S. session. Market’s seem to have liked what they head during the debate. Be cautious as the pattern is likely to continue of “dumb” money comes in the morning and “Smart” money leaves the market in the last hour. We are not referring to anyone intelligence but what the street nick names the money flow process as traders come into the market and then take profits at the end of the day.