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

Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday, December 12th, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. Our top story so far. Retail inflation rose a little more than expected in November, giving the Fed some more leeway to push back on clamoring for rate cuts early in Q1 and maybe

jawbone Treasury yields higher to re-tighten financial conditions.

The November CPI rose 0.1%, just a tad hotter than the forecast for it to remain steady.

The annual rate dipped to 3.1%.

The core rate, which excludes food and energy,

and it's tied to the Fed's target rate,

were 0.3% last month in line with expectations. The annual core

rate stayed at 4% still double the Fed's target of 2%. The three-month

annualized core rate is at 3.3% though. A rise in shelter costs counted a decline

in gas prices on the headline number. Renaissance macro research noted that core inflation

was in line despite a 1.6% increase in used car and truck prices.

That was the first rise in used auto prices since May.

They say that's unlikely to persist in the months ahead, leaving room for downside on core inflation ahead.

Ian Shepardson, economist at Pantheon Macro, says he was blindsided by the inexplicable 1.6% leap in used

auto prices. He says, it's impossible to square this reported surge with the

JD Power wholesale price numbers, and we have to expect a renewed sustained decline over the next

few months. Auto sales are now falling outright, so dealer margins cannot remain at their current levels,

still massively bloated by the pandemic.

Markets had a volatile reaction to the report in what looked like an anticipatory move on dubish numbers

stock index futures spiked right before the BLS released the report but they lost

team heading into the market open. The major averages open lower with the S&P the weakest.

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