What a week! "Talking Squawk" highlights include earnings out the wazoo, "Carlos Danger" stage names, Cialis performance rankings and National Hot Dog Day. These are the tidbits and insights on the WEEK THAT WAS and the WEEK TO COME from the notepad of the senior executive producer of "Squawk Box."
Earningspalooza
It was a madhouse on the set this week as hosts Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin sifted through a ton of earnings reports and conducted interviews with corporate executives. Good thing Squawk runs on Dunkin' (story and video: CEO interview)! In case you missed any of the interviews or reports, we linked the highlights below.
Caterpillar misses the mark. (Story and video: CEO interview)
Eli Lilly had a big quarter. (Video: CEO interview)
DuPont earnings beat. (Story and video: CEO interview)
Southwest Airlines earnings were in line. (Story and video: CEO interview)
Norfolk Southern earnings missed. (Video: CEO interview)
Dow Chemical profits beat. (Video: CEO interview)
General Motors earnings beat. (Story and video: CFO interview)
PepsiCo profits beat. (Story and video: CFO interview)
Wilbur …
They call him a vulture, but likes "Phoenix" instead of vulture. We just call him rich. Wilbur Ross hasn't flown commercial since 1962. And there's a reason for that. He's a megamind. He can pick up the scent of opportunity a mile away and he always seems to walk away with his pockets lined with cash. When the American steel industry was headed for the scrap heap, he found money in scrap. When investors ran from European banks, he started making deposits. Now Wilbur just got back from Japan and China. Can you smell what he's cooking here? (video)
Getty Images
Anthony Weiner
Carlos Danger
You can imagine Joe's commentary this week on the latest sexting revelations in the Anthony Weiner story. Let's just say our audio guru kept the "ding" sound effect at the ready. But it was CNBC's own John Harwood (our super-serious chief Washington honcho of all people!) who discovered the Slate tool that gives you your own stage name. So in case you are wondering, here's now it went down.
Joe is "Sandro Stealth."
John Harwood is "Fabricio Catostrophe."
Becky is "Benito Covert."
Cramer was "Jamie Dynamite."
Andrew wasn't even here that day but we plugged in his name anyway for fun and sure enough we got: "Leandro Ross Trouble."
No "extra pressure" (Joe talking to John Lechleiter, the CEO of Eli Lilly, maker of ED drug Cialis.)
Joe: "So Cialis seems like a logical choice. You are ready every 24 hours."
John: "Yes."
Joe: "That's so much better than the other one, where you have to be ready in an hour. That's like putting extra pressure on you."
John: "Sounds like you would know better than me Joe."
SAC torture chamber
The government continued its torture strategy against SAC Capital hedge fund boss Steven A. Cohen. The plan of course is to remind him, and the world, that the feds can do everything else possible to make his life miserable by legal means. Here's a great analysis piece by our Investigations Inc. guy Scott Cohn. (story)
Hair Nation (courtesy of Director @PaulDefabo and Technical Director @keithfalcone—who's up to 11 whole followers and counting!)
We hope a former senator from Connecticut @JoeLieberman (who was great on the show this week!) will still come back.
He has a lot of great ideas including his bipartisan take on the economy and the how the private sector can create jobs. (video)
One year ago
One year ago this week, Sandy Weill made his famous "break up the Big Banks" comments on Squawk (flashback story and video). It was our "Holy S---! moment of 2012." We're hoping he's working on his "Holy S---! Moment of 2013" and we've promised him that if he comes on again we will not put Joe Kernen's face over his and post it on this blog.
Mark your calendar (or set your DVR)
- Monday: Robert Barbera of Johns Hopkins and Michael Ryan of UBS
- Tuesday: Former Senator Judd Gregg and Tom Naratil, UBS CFO
- Wednesday: Allen Sinai, Decision Economics
- Thursday: Robert Nardelli, XLR-8, and Robert McTeer, former Dallas Fed president
- Friday: Bob Doll, Nuveen Asset Management
Tweets of Note
@YahooNews wrote:
The warming Arctic could cost the world $60 trillion—that's the whole world's economy in 2012: http://yhoo.it/17020so
(We stuck this in just to see if @JoeSquawk was paying attention.)
Liza McCorkle | E+| Getty Images
Overhead on the set (on National Hot Dog Day)
Joe: "I know those guys in the control room, they would love to catch me on camera biting into a juicy frank." (Then Joe jumps under the desk.)
Becky: "Hurry! Get the camera, Joe's hiding under the desk biting a wiener!"
BTW
Here's our interview with the CEO of Sonic in celebration of the aforementioned National Hot Dog Day. (video)
Data Check
- Wednesday: ADP Employment Report (8:15 a.m. EDT); Advance Q2 GDP (8:30 a.m. EDT); and the FOMC Rate Decision (2 p.m. EDT)
- Thursday: Jobless Claims (8:30 a.m. EDT)
- Friday: July Employment Report (8:30 a.m. EDT)
Word Jumble
Joe and Becky love to play the word jumble in the paper everyday after the show. This week, Joe won twice and Becky won once.
Joe's bonus jumbled word of the week: NCBORA
Becky's bonus jumbled word of the week: ANDIIAN
*Answers at the end
Must follow them @
Check 'em out and then follow them! Squawk contributors this week included @TonyFratto, @JohnJHarwood, @EconJared, @ScottCohnCNBC, @lebeaucarnews, @MorningMoneyBen, and @carney. We're not sure if Carney actually contributed anything or not. We're not even sure how his name keeps appearing here in this blog. In fact we now suspect the @CNBC "NetNet" blog's [NetNet.cnbc.com] may have just hacked us! Damn they're good!)
Earnings central
- Monday: Anadarko Pet, Caesars, Tenneco
- Tuesday: Aetna, Aflac, Amgen, Entergy, Goodyear, Merck, NYSE Euronext, Pfizer, Sprint
- Wednesday: Allstate, CBS, DreamWorks, Humana, Hyatt
- Thursday: Apache, Becton Dickinson, Cardinal Health, Cigna, Clorox, Kellogg, New York Times, Sony
- Friday: CableVision, Chevron, Eaton, Viacom, Washington Post
The "corny-sappy motivational business-based inspirational quote" for the weekend:
"A man should never neglect his family for business." —Walt Disney
Looking forward to the weekend because …
Life's a beach and I'm going to find one.
—By CNBC's Matthew Quayle . Follow him on Twitter @matthew_quayle.
*Joe's Jumble Bonus Word answer: NCBORA=carbon
*Becky's Jumble Bonus Word answer: ANDIIAN=Indiana
