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

Good afternoon, today's Monday, September 16th, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. Our top story so far.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, at least for retailers. Target says it will hire

about 100,000 additional seasonal team members as is already preparing for the holiday

shopping rush.

As part of its holiday plan, Target said its Target Circle Week event for October 6 to 12th.

Target's popular deal of the day program is also back.

It will also return November 1st through the rest of the season

for Target Circle members.

In recent years, retailers have been pushing forward their holiday shopping deals,

well in advance of the traditional Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals

just after the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

Deloitte issued an early holiday sales forecast that could create some ripples of worry in the retail sector.

The firm thinks that holiday sales will be up between 2.3 and 3.3% compared with last year.

This would take the total to 1.58 trillion to 1.59 trillion during the November to January time period.

In 2023 holiday sales grew by 4.3% in the same period.

Deloitte Economist Ac Akro Barua, says,

although the pace of increase in holiday sales will be slower than last year,

we expect that healthy growth in disposable personal income,

combined with a steady labor market will support a solid

holiday sale season. On the economic front there was a surprise jump in New York

area manufacturing for September. The Empire State Manufacturing Index came at 11.50 versus the Down 410

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