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

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, July 19th, and I'm your host, Kim Kong.

Our top story so far in today's session.

Goldman Sachs posted a big Q2 earnings miss, but the stock damage was contained

as investors gauge the investment bank's repositioning.

Goldman is retrenching from consumer finance and slimming down its portfolio of investments.

Part of the move away from consumer finance included a 504 million goodwill impairment charge related to Green Sky, a platform

it seeking to sell about a year after acquiring it.

The bank warned investors that Q2 results would include big write-downs and annualized return on equity

would tumble. The stock is down more than 1%. By the numbers, Q2-EPS came at

308 versus 404 consensus, down from 879 in Q1.

Total net revenue of 10.9 billion top of the consensus of 10.7 billion,

but declined from 12.2 billion in the prior quarter.

Among other bank earnings, U.S. Bank Corp beat but net interest outlook disappointed.

Citizens Financial just missed on the top line, and M&T Bank rose on a solid quarter.

In today's trading stocks are a little higher but investors are likely to be

cautious ahead of earnings from Tesla, Netflix, and IBM after the bell. The S&P, NASDAQ, and Dow are

up a little less than half a percent. Rates are lower with a 10-year Treasury yield below 3.8%.

June housing starts and building permits were dovish

after a strong May.

Starts fell more than expected to an annual rate of 1.

434 million.

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