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

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, June 21st, and I'm your host, Kim Khan.

Our top story so far in today's session.

Fed Chief J. Powell is on Capitol Hill for the first of two days of congressional testimony

that some of us old-timers remember as

Humphrey Hawkins. Nothing jolting in his opening remarks as you'd expect.

He hinted at some more hikes noting that inflation pressures continue to run high and

getting inflation back to 2% has a long way to go.

But he also said given how far and fast the FOMC is moved in this tightening cycle it was

prudent to keep rates steady at last week's meeting.

The Fed's latest dot plot penciled in two more rate hikes for this year, but markets are

skeptical.

UBS chief economist Paul Donovan says their suspicion that the June pause was a quid pro quo for a July hike.

Away from monetary policy, Powell said the Fed is committed to addressing the vulnerabilities of regional banks after the

S.V. B. Failure. As for the Q&A, Donovan says that due to the

partisan agendas, much of the questions will be on the causes of

inflation. But what economists would really love to hear is how the Fed would contain profit-led inflation.

The retailer-profit share of retail GDP rose to 21% at the end of last year, up from 14% before

the pandemic.

Speaking of the Fed in Congress, the Senate Banking Committee is

holding a hearing on the nominations of Adriana Kugler to the board, Lisa Cook

to a second term, and Philip Jefferson to Vice Chairman. Yesterday Cook and Jefferson said the top priority is to get inflation down to the 2% target.

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