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

Good afternoon. Today is Friday, August 4th, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. Our top story in today's session.

The U.S. non-form payrolls rose by 187,000 in July, a little lower than the 200,000 expected. June was revised down to 185,000, but the

unemployment rate ticked down for a second straight month to 3.5% from 3.6% in

June. Average hourly earnings growth stayed steady, rising 0.4% on the month, stronger

than the 0.3% increase expected. On a year-to-year basis, earnings are at 4.4% compared with 4.2% expected.

Seeking Alpha analyst Damir Tokich says the wage growth is inflationary,

while the lower jobless rate points to a labor shortage.

Allian's advisor Mohammed Al-Arian says this month's report has something for everyone in terms of the type of landing the U.S economy is headed for.

The softer landing camp will take comfort in the lower than expected

payroll gain and the harder landing camp will point to a hotter wage growth of 4.4

percent and the fall in the unemployment rate. The chance of a quarter point rate hike

at the Fed's September meeting edged up slightly to 18.5% from 18%.

Chicago Fed President Austin Goolsbee is pointed to this week

St Louis Fed economist published a new monthly weekly index of usual

weekly hours worked per capita that showed a sharp snap back in hours worked

to near pre-Covid levels in contrast to the slow recovery after the Great Recession.

In Q2, hours worked showed a sharp slowdown and July data showed another down-tick that Tokich says signals the upcoming

economic weakness this fall. This is the worst case scenario for the stock market

sticky inflation and slower growth. The Fed would likely be forced to hike

into the slowdown, he adds.

Now I look at today's trading. Stocks are higher and choppy trading following the Jaws numbers.

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