Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action news and analysis.

Good afternoon. Today is Thursday, August 3rd, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. Our top story in today's session.

Bill Ackman's Hedge Fund is betting against 30-year U.S. Treasuries, calling it a hedge on the impact of higher long-term rates on stocks as well as a high

probability standalone bet. Ackman tweeted that a long bond short was one of the few

macro investments that still offers a reasonably probable asymmetric payoff.

Pershing Square will hedge by using options rather than shorting at right.

He adds that if long-term inflation is 3% instead of 2%,

the 30-year yield could reach 5.5% soon.

There are many times in history where the bond market re-prices the long end of the curve in a matter of weeks,

and it seems like this is one of those times, Ackman adds.

He also notes that long-term treasuries look over-bought and with $32 trillion of debt, large

deficits, and higher refinancing rates and increasing supply of such treasuries as assured.

Adding QT into the mix, it's hard to imagine how the market absorbs such a large increase in supply

without materially higher rates. Now I look at today's trading. Stocks are adding to the big sell-off in the previous

session, mainly due to the drag from corporate earnings. The S&P is off less than half a

percent, while the NASDAQ and dow are faring better.

Yields are higher on the long end of the curve amid a slew of economic numbers.

The 10-year Treasury yield is up 10 basis points to 4.17 percent, while the two-year yield is flat around 4.9%.

If this holds up, it will be the continuation of a trend for the two-stens curve, with eight straight

days of steepening. The first reading of Q2 non-firm labor productivity showed a 3.7% increase,

stronger than the 1.3% expected

and reversing the 2.1% decline.

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