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

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, January 17th, and I'm your host Kim Khan. Our top story so far.

U.S. consumers continue to show resilience through the holidays with the latest retail sales figures coming in ahead of forecasts.

The strength will get the attention of the Fed, whose members have been pushing back against

the market's confidence that interest rate cuts will arrive in the first quarter.

December retail sales are a 0.6% on the month.

Economists were looking for a 0.4% gain.

Core retail sales were a 0.4% as well, double the consensus estimate.

Sales excluding autos and gas are at 0.6%, well ahead of the forecast of 0.2%.

For anyone thinking that the consumer was losing momentum at the end of last year, think economists at Wells Fargo said they note that

Control Group sales which are the best read for personal spending in the GDP accounts

rose 0.8% and these retailers saw sales revised higher in November as well.

Once adjusting the estimate for inflation, these data suggests modest upside to

Q4 personal spending.

Overall it appears that the staying power that has helped prop up spending over the past year remains.

It may be shifting away from excess liquidity to a reliance on borrowing and real income growth,

but it's intact as consumer resilience helps stay off an economic

contraction. The odds of a quarter-point rate cut coming in March fell back down below

60 percent according to Fed Funds futures. Odds are now about 50-50 on five or six rate cuts by the end of the year.

ING analysts note, the Jaws market is tight, inflation is above target, consumer spending

is holding up, and recent Fed commentary suggests they are

in no hurry to loosen policy. As such, we continue to favor May at the start point for interest

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