CNBC

HotelTonight's CEO Sam Shank And Last-Minute Booking

Jason Cunningham — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:05:14 +0000

You're on the go. It's last-minute. You're traveling somewhere and you need a hotel fast. Enter HotelTonight. Their CEO and co-founder Sam Shank appeared on CNBC Squawk Box on Tuesday morning to talk about the company's innovation on finding a hotel.

HotelTonight is an app that offers cheap, quality hotel rooms at the last minute in 12 countries and over a 100 destinations. Shank said that they were built from the ground up on mobile devices, with their sole focus on on-demand hotels.

But now...

"What we really focus on is inspiring people to be more spontaneous and to create more primary demand for the industry and for hotels," said Shank.

Shank said that they're ...

Harvard Business School's Nitin Nohria Has Three Important Numbers

Jason Cunningham — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:48:20 +0000

Nitin Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School, appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box Tuesday Morning where he discussed what the United States needs to assure economic competitiveness on a global scale.

Nohria went through the first process of moving out of the recession and pushing into a sustained recovery, saying that there are three numbers America should be focused on. What are the big three?

According to Nohria, those numbers are: inflation staying under two percent, unemployment staying below six percent, and GDP growth rates maintaining three percent.

Nohria said that If the policy of quantitative easing continues until we get to the stage where all of those numbers remain consistent, then the U.S. will will be at a point of a sustained recovery.

"We shouldn't be satisfied with just a sustained recovery because the problems that we have in the country that relate to our competitiveness go well beyond the current recession. They are structural issues, they are ...

From The Paris Air Show: United Technologies CEO Louis Chênevert

Jason Cunningham — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:47:44 +0000

CEO of United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) Louis Chênevert appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box from the Paris Air Show where he talked about their Goodrich acquisition, Embraer (NYSE: ERJ) securing an order for 300 new regional jets that feature subsidiary Pratt & Whitney's geared turbofan engines, and their components on other various airplane models.

"Our Goodrich acquisition has been fantastic. We've announced integration a year ago. It's going to already be a year of integration. The people all mesh well together. The savings for the costumer are coming through. It's been a transformational acquisition for United Technology,"

According to him, "there's necessity for more consolidation in the industry."

He said that you need to have scale to properly ...

From The Paris Air Show: Barclays' Carter Copeland On Boeing 77x vs. Airbus A350

Jason Cunningham — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:40:51 +0000

Carter Copeland, Barclays' (NYSE: BCS) equity research analyst covering global aerospace, appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box Monday morning live from the Paris Air Show, where he discussed the battle for buyers between the Boeing (NYSE: BA) 77x and the Airbus A350.

According to Copeland, there doesn't have to be a winner or a loser between the two aerospace companies.

"I think one of the things we find in the wide-body market today is there's sufficient demand for all of the fuel efficient replacement airplanes out there. I think the demands of costumers are differentiated enough on the wide-body market that from an investor's perspective, both companies could actually produce sufficient numbers of airplanes for both of these programs to make a ...

Evercore Partners' Michael Price Calls The Cloud Creative Destruction

Jason Cunningham — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:09:07 +0000

Michael Price, Evercore Partners (NYSE: EVR) senior managing director, went on CNBC's Squawk Box on Friday morning where he discussed cloud storage as a creative destruction in the tech industry.

Price said that right now roughly 10 percent of computing occurs in the cloud, and that there is a perfect storm brewing for huge sector-wide buyouts in tech.

"That's going to move from 40 and 50 percent over the next few years," said Price regarding cloud storage.

"And what that means is creative destruction across a number of vectors."

According to Price, the traditional IT ...

ING U.S. CEO Rodney Martin Talks About Retirement Readiness

Jason Cunningham — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:06:19 +0000

ING U.S. (NYSE: VOYA) CEO and Chairman Rodney Martin went on CNBC's Squawk Box to discuss their focus on retirement as a newly public company.

ING has only been public for about a month and a half, and are focusing on retirement moving forward as a company. Martin said that they currently have $481 billion in assets under management, and that the majority of their earnings, over 76 percent, come from retirement and investment management.

Martin noted that it wouldn't surprise him if the American average for retirement savings was about $25,000 per person like some ...

The Little Guy is Getting Screwed... But Nothing is Different

Matthew Kanterman — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:19:13 +0000

News coverage over the past day has focused on a CNBC report that Reuters and the University of Michigan were gaming investors by selling their Consumer Confidence Survey early to premium and super premium customers. Is this really news? Is this really a crisis? Is this different to the way it has always been?

The answer to all three questions is simply, definitively, and unequivocally no.

Natural Gas Storage Data

Traders in the natural gas market have seen this trend for some time. This morning, at 10:30 am eastern, the weekly storage data was released. The EIA reported that natural gas inventories rose 95 billion BCF's last week, slightly lower than the expected 96 billion rise and below last week's rise of 111 billion BCF's.

Looking at the United States Natural Gas Fund (NYSE: UNG), there were some interesting trades ahead of the release. At 10:29, one minute before the release, the ETF began trading at $20.01. About 20 second before the release, the fund spiked up to $20.10, dropped to $20.05, and then bounced to $20.12. This all happened before the data was released.

A Pattern?

Similar patterns for this one data release are seen on a weekly basis, and yet no media ...

Free of Poop and Ready to Sail, Carnival Cruises CEO Gerry Cahill Talks Triumph

Jason Cunningham — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:47:01 +0000

Carnival Cruises (NYSE: CCL) CEO Gerry Cahill spoke on CNBC's Squawk Box Thursday morning from the port in Galveston, TX that a revamped cruise ship Triumph calls home.

After a publicity disaster last February when an engine room fire left passengers floating around on Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico with no toilets and no electricity, the ship sails off for a sold out four-day cruise.

"I walked through the whole ship and met all of the guests," said Cahill in regards to meeting passengers in Mobile, AL after their nightmarish cruise aboard the old Triumph in the beginning of the year.

Triumph's five-day cruise that leaves on Monday is also sold ...

U.S. Global Investors CEO Frank Holmes Defends Gold

Jason Cunningham — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:38:58 +0000

Frank Holmes, CEO and chief investment officer at U.S. Global Investors (NASDAQ: GROW), appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box to talk commodities, mostly his feelings on why he likes gold.

Holmes said that he's always preached having at least 5% exposure to gold stocks.

"And rebalance it. And there's been points where it's been extremely overvalued on a relative basis to the markets; just have these huge moves, and now we're in the correction mode," said Holmes.

According to Holmes, gold has it's own "DNA of volatility," with its annual volatility at ...

Inside Hewlett-Packard's Optimistic Turnaround WIth CEO Meg Whitman

Jason Cunningham — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:58:06 +0000

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) CEO Meg Whitman appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box Wednesday morning from the HP Discover conference in Las Vegas to discuss the company's recent turnaround and future after a rough couple of years.

Hewlett-Packard just had a great quarter, with their stock up significantly and earnings higher than analysts' projections. Whitman said that it was only part of the five year plan she laid out to get Hewlett-Packard running exactly how it should be, saying that they're a bit ahead of where they thought they would be eighteen months into the turnaround.

"There's a lot of heavy lifting ahead," said Whitman.

Whitman said that Hewlett-Packard would need to adjust to the changing tech world. Personal computer sales are at their lowest and dropping while tablets and smartphones seem to be running victory laps in the market.

"We think growth is still possible in 2014, ...

Marc Andreessen From The Middle Of The Tech World

Jason Cunningham — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:09:15 +0000

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of numerous tech companies, such as AOL's (NYSE: AOL) Netscape and Ning, and co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box Wednesday morning to talk about the world of tech, including his views on Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) CEO Meg Whitman, of which he sits on the board of directors.

Andreessen noted that Whitman was the best CEO that the company has had since its founders.

"Meg is the world class CEO that I think this company deserves," said Andreessen.

Whitman sat on the board of directors with Andreessen when turmoil occurred within HP during 2011. When the last CEO, Léo Apotheker, was ousted, Whitman was hired.

"I had her on a plane for six hours coming back from the East Coast, kind of during that critical period, and I and a couple of the other directors sat with her, and about halfway through the flight got the twinkle in her eye…She said 'Well, let's say purely hypothetically, that if I were to do it. What would the plan be?' And then I was like 'Okay, we got her,'" said Andreessen.

He said that she laid out a five-year plan that was blocked out year by year for everyone with a stake in Hewlett-Packard. Andreessen called it the "Great American Turnaround," saying that this is the kind of thing that ...

Former CEO Of General Electric Jack Welch Lets It All Out

Jason Cunningham — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:55:41 +0000

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (NYSE: GE) and founder of the Jack Welch Management Institute, went on CNBC's Squawk Box Tuesday morning to seemingly give his opinion on everything in his scope.

Welch started off by expressing that Edward Snowden, now famous for unveiling classified government surveillance secrets, should get the book thrown at him.

"He broke the Law, he should be prosecuted, and we gotta expedite him back here and prosecute him to the full extent of the law," said Welch.

He noted that in regards to the National Security Agency security scandal, Welch gave President Obama a grade 'A.' He called the Internal Revenue Service scandal, however, a "total tragedy" and a "real scandal."

Welch went on to say that he found Attorney General Eric Holder to be "misleading at best."

According to Welch, government employees being unionized is a major problem, because they can benefit by manipulating the system through elections. He said that even the most decent people in the world are making subjective decisions when working at places like the IRS and Bureau of ...

Bromium CEO Gaurav Banga On Keeping Their Clients Safe

Jason Cunningham — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:38:33 +0000

Gaurav Banga, CEO and co-founder of Bromium, stopped by CNBC Squawk Box today to talk about computer security, and how their products keep their clients free of compromise.

Banga started off by explaining that within the world of computer security, you make lists. There's one for good software and one for bad software. After a hack attack, the software used is added to the list of bad software.

"You can be sure when somebody's writing a targeted attack, a new piece of malware, it's not going to be on one of those two lists," said Banga.

Banga stated that anyone you see in the news who has been hacked was hacked by a program on one of those lists.

"Instead of trying to decide whether what list to use and what ...

President and CEO Inge Thulin On 3M's Focus On Innovation (MMM)

Jason Cunningham — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:43:17 +0000

Inge Thulin, 3M (NYSE: MMM) President and CEO, was on CNBC's Squawk Box Monday morning to talk about how the company famous for Ace, Post-it, Scotch and Nexcare brands makes its product innovations, and about some of the company's long-term plans. Recently, 3M's LED lightbulb won an Edison Award for innovation.

Thulin appeared live from a 3M customer innovation center in Mexico City, where they show consumers new and innovative products. He said it's called costumer-inspired innovation because costumers work directly with their scientists to make 3M's products better.

He's very focused on Latin America's economy, where they've been since 1946, as well as optimistic about its future, but Thulin says that there's as much opportunity for them in China, where they've been since 1984.

He said that their portfolio in China is very much concentrated around manufacturing, electronics, and energy, saying that they're now building out into consumer products, healthcare, and safety.

"The way we build our businesses is often in the way that the ...

Runa's Dan MacCombie Chats About Their Place In The Energy Drink Biz (WFM, VSI)

Jason Cunningham — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:39:04 +0000

Dan MacCombie, Runa co-CEO and co-founder, went on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning to go over the energy beverage company's history, distribution, and the differences between them and their competitors.

"All of our products are based on guayusa. It's what we call a super leaf. We source it directly from farmers in the Amazon. It's got as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, twice the antioxidants of green tea, and gives what we call clean energy, a really focused, powerful feeling that doesn't give you a lot of the downsides of other forms," said MacCombie.

It's not actually tea, but rather a leaf from a tree found only in South America. According to the company's website, the guayusa tree leaf is what the indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest have used to brew as "tea" for millennia.

The drink is meant to take energy drinks head-on. The difference between them and many of their competitors is that Runa drinks only have ...