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

Good afternoon, today is Thursday, September 5th, and I'm your host Kim Khan.

Our top story so far. Verizon announced the deal to acquire frontier communications

in an all-cash transaction valued at $20 billion.

The telecom giant said, transaction valued $20 billion.

The telecom giant said, the strategic acquisition of the largest pure play fiber internet provider

in the US will significantly expand Verizon's fiber footprint across the nation, accelerating the company's delivery

of premium mobility and broadband services to current and new customers.

Verizon will pay 3850 a share in cash, a premium of 43.7% to Frontier's 90-day volume-weighted average share price on September 3rd,

2024, the last trading day prior to media reports regarding a potential acquisition.

Frontier is down about 10% today,

after rocketing nearly 40% in the previous session

on anticipation of the deal.

Seeking Alpha analyst Jeremy Lacoche says,

the deal will add long-term value to Verizon shares. The good portion of this deal makes sense for both companies, there is a regulatory

cloud that will likely hang over it for months. It's important to note that in the

last decade, Verizon eventually negotiated a sale of its landline business to Frontier

which in itself faced many regulatory hurdles

before clearing and eventually blowing up on Frontier, he said.

There was a raft of economic data this morning that overall ease some of the concerns

about growth raised on Wednesday with the week Joltz report.

The stock and bond markets bounced around, perhaps rangebound going into the Big Jobs report on Friday,

...