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

Good afternoon, today is Thursday, December 19th, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. Our top story so far.

El Salvador will sell or discontinue its Bitcoin wallet Chivo as part of a new deal with the

International Monetary Fund. El Salvador, the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender, agreed

to scale back on its Bitcoin-related policies. Under the $1.4 billion loan deal, the nation will

allow businesses to voluntarily accept Bitcoin as a means of payment, while ensuring that taxes will

continue to be paid exclusively in U.S. dollars rather than Bitcoin. For the public sector,

participation in Bitcoin-related activities, as well as transactions and purchases involving

Bitcoin, will be restricted, the IMF said in a statement. Still, the Central American country,

where Bitcoin remains,

and will continue to be legal tender, will keep adding Bitcoin to its reserves at possibly an accelerated pace, Stacey Herbert, director of the National Bitcoin Office, wrote.

Looking to the U.S. economy, the third estimate of GDP in Q3, 2024, settled at 3.1% quarter-on-quarter, up from the

Commerce Department's previous estimate, of 2.8%, reflecting upward revisions to exports and consumer

spending. Those upward adjustments were partly offset by a downward revision to private inventory

investments. Imports, which are subtracted

from GDP, were revised up, reflecting a drag on U.S. economic growth. The revised number shows

that Q3 growth ticked up from the already strong 3% quarter-on-quarter rate notched in Q2,

2024, and provides further evidence that the U.S. consumer continues to drive economic growth.

And weekly initial jobless claims fell by 22,000 to 220,000 compared with 229,000 consensus.

Economist Mohamed Alarion says the strong GDP number, combined with the decline in jobless claims,

will dampen hopes

of an immediate retracement of yesterday's surge in bond yields, which was the largest since

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