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

Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, April 9th, and I'm your host, Kim Kong.

Our top story so far, and it's a doozy. You may not be able to fight the Fed, and you certainly can't beat the bond market.

In a massive U-turn, President Donald Trump let most countries off the hook from the large tariffs he announced last week,

instead zeroing in on an escalating battle with China.

And stocks are rocketing higher, with the S&P 500 up about 8%, the NASDAQ composite up 10%, and the Dow up 7%.

Muhammad Al-Aryan, advisor at Alianz, says,

up to an hour ago there was a debate on what would convince the U.S. administration

to opt for some type of pause on tariffs.

Would it be Congress, the president's advisors, business leaders, the legal system,

markets, or something else?

We got the answer today. It's the

government bond market, particularly how close it gets to the line that separates while price volatility

from market malfunctioning. Facing a big sell-off in stocks, and more importantly at this point,

a persistently big rise in treasury yields when part of the plan was to get rates down, the White House went from declaring no exemptions, no pauses, and negotiations one country

at a time to eliminate every trade deficit, two, a 90-day pause with tariffs dropping to 10

percent on the majority of the countries on the original list. But Trump also boosted tariffs on

China again in response to an earlier move by Beijing.

Based on the lack of respect that China has shown the world's markets, I am hereby raising the

tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125% effective immediately, Trump said

on truth social. The president said other countries have called U.S.

federal agencies, such as the Departments of Commerce and Treasury, to negotiate a solution to

...