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

Good afternoon. Today is Thursday, November 2nd, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn.

Our top story so far. Welcome to the Everything is Awesome Trading Day.

For the first time this tightening cycle, investors look like they are putting the Fed in the rearview mirror.

That means good economic news isn't viewed as more grist for the relentless J Powell rate height mill.

Instead, it's evidence that a soft landing can happen.

Powell did his best to stress his data-dependent stance

and not close the door on more hikes,

but he wasn't too convincing based on the action that followed his presser.

The odds of a hike in December are now down below 20%.

Stocks are rallying and bond yields are tumbling. The SOP and NASDAQ are up about 1.5% leading the Dow.

The 10-year yield is slumping to around 4.65%. For the week, the

S&P is up 4.5%, potentially it's the biggest gain since June. A lot will depend on Apple earnings after the bell. Seeking

Alpha analyst Mike Zakardi says soft labor cost figures in the productivity report out

pre-market fueled what could be a short covering rally in the Treasury market.

Of course stocks love lower borrowing rates so equity is across the board rallied, he

says, and that's right in cue for this time a year. Both large and small caps often perform well in November.

Q3 non-farm productivity came in up 4.7%, well ahead of the 4.1% expected and up from 3.6% in Q2.

That's the highest level of productivity since Q3 2020.

But remember, that's now awesome.

Gregory Daco, economist Ernst & Young, says what is impressive is that

you rarely, if ever, get these types of very strong productivity readings outside

...