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

Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday April 9th and I'm your host Kim Khan. Our top story so far.

Invidia can rescue Wall Street, but cannot help Main Street.

Stock Bulls are confident that AI enthusiasm can overcome fewer rate cuts and sticky inflation,

but inflation continues to bite small business owners who are the most pessimistic in more than 11 years.

The NFIB March Small Business Optim Index fell for the third straight month to 88.5, that's the lowest level since December 2012, and the 27th month in a row, it's been below the historical average of 98.

The net percent of small business owners raising average selling prices rose 7 percentage points to 28 percent

and the higher sales expectations index component dropped 8 points to

negative 18. Oliver Allen, economist a pantheon macro, says the retreat in

the index lately is all the more notable given the headline tends to be sensitive to the stock

market which has surged to new highs. Compare the decade-low and small business

outlook to the continued bullish sentiment in the stock market. Last week the

investors intelligence survey showed bulls up to 62.5

percent pushing the ratio of bulls to bears to 4.43 which is the highest since

early 2018. The AAII weekly survey has bulls at 47.3% among individual investors and bears at 22.2%.

Wells Fargo analyst Chris Harvey, who boosted his S&P target this week,

says in our view the bull market, AI secular growth story,

and index concentration have shifted investors' attention

away from traditional valuation measures

and towards longer-term growth and discounting metrics. But are higher interest rates in fact

driving inflation. Jack Manley at J.P. Morgan argued it's time for the Federal Reserve to start easing to help stabilize prices.

You slice and dice inflation and whether you're looking at the headline number, whether you're looking at the core number, you're removing the goods equation.

...