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

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, May 15th, and I'm your host, Kim Con. I talk the story so far.

Stocks are rallying as the closely watched CPI numbers came in right in where expectations were, or as traders say, stopped on the screws.

The April Consumer Price Index was 0.3% from March, coming in a tick lower than the 0.4% consensus and easing from 0.4% pace in the first three months of the year.

Combined, shelter, and gasoline prices contributed more than 70% to the monthly increase to the headline number.

And the Energy Index increased 1.1% from March, while the Food Index was Of course, CPI rose 0.3% month on month versus the 0.3% expected and 0.4% prior.

Seeking Alpha Analysts, Damer Tocich, said the headline number essentially rules out the June-July Fed cut despite the slowing economy.

But he added that there is no relief from shelter inflation and services inflation continues to be sticky,

combined with the miss in April retail sales, this further concerns deflationary environments.

Traders, though, are marginally more optimistic about the July rate cut.

The probability of a 25 basis point cut increased to 32.5% on Wednesday from 26.4% on Tuesday.

Pantheon Macro says,

we infer from today's CPI data

and yesterday's PPI numbers

that the core PCE was 0.24% in April, though exact precision, is impossible

given some PCE components are derived from other data yet to be published.

Looking ahead, the case for expecting a further slowdown in core

CPA inflation remains compelling, they said. Supply chains have normalized, wage growth is

weakening, and corporate margins are flat but still hugely

elevated indicating clear scope to fall ahead. That's good news for the Fed looking to

clamp down on inflation. As is, retail sales stalled, staying steady in April.

The flat reading, which comes after two strong monthly gains, signals that consumers have become

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