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

Good afternoon, today is Thursday, September 19th, and I'm your host Kim Kahn. Our top story so far.

J.P. Morgan Chase, CEO Jamie Diamond, says people are overly focused on the soft landing

debate, warning that geopolitical tensions

pose the biggest risk to global financial markets and may affect the free and

democratic world for the next 100 years. Speaking at the 2024 Financial Markets Quality Conference, Diamond said,

The most important thing that dwarfs all other things that's really far more

important today than it's been probably since 1945 is the war in Ukraine. What's going on in Israel in the Middle East,

America's relations with China, and the attack fundamentally on the rule of law that was set up

after World War II. Diamonds spoke about the nearly 1 million casualties in the

Ukraine war and the threat of nuclear blackmail. Iran, North Korea, and Russia. I think

you can legitimately call an evil access who are working every day on how to make it worse for the Western

world and for America, he said.

He added that he wouldn't include China in the evil access, but said they're on the wrong side,

at least as far as I'm concerned and the Western world is concerned.

In today's trading, delayed reaction or just time to digest.

Stocks are rallying sharply after closing lower in the previous session.

The NASDAQ is gaining more than 2% and the S&P 500 is fighting for its first close above 5,700.

Both the Dow and S&P have set new intraday records.

The question as usual is what is gearing out the bulls.

Are they coming around to Fed Chief Jay Powell's proudestations that the economy is strong

despite starting the easing cycle with a big rate cut or are they

...