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

Good afternoon. Today is Thursday, Septemberth and I'm your host Kim Khan.

Our top story so far. The dealer network for automaker Stellantis has criticized CEO

Carla Stavares for the rapid degradation of its brands, accusing him of short-term

decision-making the boosted profits and his own compensation. That's according to

an open letter viewed by Bloomberg. The automaker has been laying off

employees and reducing U.S. production to cut costs

of midweek sales. It has also cut prices and brought back incentives to clear bloated vehicle

inventories. But dealers fear Stellantis is shrinking its market share even further

and hurting its cheap, RAM, Dodge, and Chrysler brands. They also believe Stelantis needs to spend more money

to clear inventories.

For over two years now, the U.S. Stilantis National Dealer Council has been sounding this alarm to your executive team that the course you set for Stilantis was going to be a disaster in the long run, the group

wrote in the letter. A disaster not just for us, but for everyone involved, and now that

disaster has arrived. Management pushed back against the group's claims saying at Stellantis, we don't believe

the public personal attacks such as the one in the open letter from the NDC president

against our CEO are the most effective way to solve problems.

On the economic front, more inflation data arrived, this time on wholesale prices.

The producer price index and the core PPI

came in a little hotter than expected in August, but downward

revisions took annual rates down on both.

The PPI rose 0.2% last month, higher than expectations for 0.1% rise, with July revised to flat versus 0.1% initial print.

The core PPI wrote 0.3%, topping the 0.2% forecast, with July revised to a negative 0.2% forecast with July revised to a negative 0.2% decline from flat.

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